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What Is Art For? by Ellen Dissanayake (Paperback, 1990)

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Author: Ellen Dissanayake. In this provocative study, Ellen Dissanayake examines art along with play and ritual as human behaviors that “make special,” and proposes that making special is an inherited tendency as intrinsic to the human species as speech and toolmaking.

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Every human society displays some form of behavior that can be called art, and in most societies other than our own the arts play an integral part in social life. Those who wish to understand art in its broadest sense, as a universal human endowment, need to go beyond modern Western elitist notions that disregard other cultures and ignore the human species' four-million-year evolutionary history. This book offers a new and unprecedentedly comprehensive theory of the evolutionary significance of art. Art, meaning not only visual art, but music, poetic language, dance, and performance, is for the first time regarded from a biobehavioral or ethical viewpoint. It is shown to be a biological necessity in human existence and fundamental characteristic of the human species. In this provocative study, Ellen Dissanayake examines art along with play and ritual as human behaviors that make special, and proposes that making special is an inherited tendency as intrinsic to the human species as speech and toolmaking. She claims that the arts evolved as means of making socially important activities memorable and pleasurable, and thus have been essential to human survival. Avoiding simplism and reductionism, this original synthetic approach permits a fresh look at old questions about the origins, nature, purpose, and value of art. It crosses disciplinary boundaries and integrates a number of divers fields: human ethology; evolutionary biology; the psychology and philosophy of art; physical and cultural anthropology; primitive and prehistoric art; Western cultural history; and children's art. The final chapter, From Tradition to Aestheticism, explores some of the ways in which modern Western society has diverged from other societies--particularly the type of society in which human beings evolved--and considers the effects of the aberrance on our art and our attitudes toward art. This book is addressed to readers who have a concerned interest in the arts or in human nature and the state of modern society.

Product Identifiers

Publisher
University of Washington Press
ISBN-13
9780295970172
eBay Product ID (ePID)
95708030

Product Key Features

Author
Ellen Dissanayake
Publication Name
What Is Art For?
Format
Paperback
Language
English
Subject
Sociology
Publication Year
1990
Type
Textbook
Number of Pages
266 Pages

Dimensions

Item Weight
408g

Additional Product Features

Title_Author
Ellen Dissanayake
Country/Region of Manufacture
United States

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item 1 Ellen Dissanayake What Is Art For? (Paperback) What Is Art For?
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Picture 1 of 1

What Is Art For? by Ellen Dissanayake (Paperback, 1990)

About this product

Product Information

Product Identifiers

Product Key Features

Dimensions

Additional Product Features

All listings for this product

item 1 Ellen Dissanayake What Is Art For? (Paperback) What Is Art For?

item 2 What Is Art For?

item 3 Ellen Dissanayake What Is Art For? (Paperback) What Is Art For? (US IMPORT)

Best Selling in School Textbooks & Study Guides

Self-Made Man: My Year Disguised as a Man by Norah Vincent (Paperback, 2006)

The Big Book of Catapult and Trebuchet Plans! by Ron L Toms (Paperback, 2010)

Tracks, Scats and Other Traces: Reissue by Barbara Triggs (Paperback, 2004)

Quantum Entanglement for Babies by Chris Ferrie (Board Book, 2017)

Save on School Textbooks & Study Guides

P-Sb7 Spirit Box Research for Use in Inter- Dimensional Contact [Paperback]

Bindi: Winner of the Daisy Utemorrah Award by Kirli Saunders (Paperback) FREE Sh

The Meateater Fish and Game Cookbook: Recipes and Techniques for Every Hunter an

The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down: How to be Calm in a Busy World

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