How does natural selection inform our understanding of natural and artistic beauty?
"Human beings are born image-makers and image-enjoyers," writes author Denis Dutton in The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution.
Dutton links Darwinian theory with the universality of art and artistic appreciation, arguing it is innate in all of us.
In an early chapter dubbed Landscape and Longing, he points out that Kenyans are attracted to the Hudson River school of art with its hilly undulations and visual complexity.
The savanna, in turn, has greatly inspired modern golf course design.
In the chapter titled What is Art? he offers a list of 12 cluster criteria found cross-culturally, including direct pleasure, emotional saturation and intellectual challenge present in all works of art, regardless of form.
The book's a beaut, successfully proving that while forms of art may vary across countries and continents, the appreciation of art is a constant.
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