An Empirical Working Definition

I have attempted to show that the characteristics cited by art scholars as being either necessary or sufficient elements of art (i.e., the aesthetic emotion, symbols, creativity) are problematic for various reasons. The elements common to all examples of animal “art” may be a good guide to a working definition. The modification of a body or object by using color, line, and pattern is consistent with the characteristics implicit or explicit in definitions of art used by some of the influential thinkers in aesthetics. Plato, who gave us one of the earliest implicit definitions of art, implied that color and form were crucial to art when he wrote,

I think that you must know, for you have often seen what a poor appearance the tales of poets make when stripped of the colors which music puts upon them...they are like faces which were never really beautiful, but only blooming; and now the bloom of youth has passed from them. (1977: 14)

In the 17^th century, Nicolas Poussin (ca. 1647) defined visual art as “an imitation of anything that is to be seen under the sun, done with lines and colors upon a surface” (cited in Goldwater & Treves 1945: 151). Tolstoy's 19^th century definition is similar: "To evoke in oneself a feeling one has experienced and having evoked it in oneself, then by means of movements, lines and colors, sounds or forms, expressed in words, so to transmit that..." (1977/1897: 65-66).

Early in the 20^th century, Clive Bell (1958, first published in 1911: 389), a writer associated with the famous art critic, Roger Fry, defined visual art as "significant form."  He claimed that significant form, which included "combinations of lines and color," was the "one quality common to all works of visual art" (p. 18-19; see also Beardsley 1958; Langer 1957). Twelve years after Bell (1923), Boas defined visual art similarly, as significant form. Almost seventy years after Boas, Dissanayake (1992: 59) argued that art (“making special”) involves, among a vast number of other things, bright colors; appealing shapes…and Thus, the following definition is proposed 

Visual Art: the modification of an object or body through color, line, pattern and form that is done solely to attract attention to that object or body. Visual art is a mechanism to attract attention to things. As it is used in association with something, it thereby attracts attention to that something. That "something" may be a message. The art draws attention to that message.  The proximate aim of visual art is to attract attention, perhaps by provoking emotions. To the extent that visual art is an adaptation then is ultimate function is to influence behavior in ways that promote success in leaving descendants. 

Attract comes from the Latin word attractus, meaning to draw or cause to approach or adhere to. While attract and attractive are often used in the sense of attracting only favorable attention , they also may refer to the fact that visual art pulls or drawn our attention. The sine qua non of visual art is that it is noticeable. The first requirement of influence is to be noticed. 

Color, scientifically, refers to the characteristic ways object have of reflecting various wavelengths of ambient art. For species that discriminate color, what seems significant is that color makes it possible to identify subtle differences in objects. A functio of color is to aid in the categorization and comparison and in the identification and re-identification of objects (Hilbert 1987). This suggests that colors are attractive to humans because they aided our ancestors in identifying and re-identifying objects and they helped influence appropriate choices. \\

Form refers to the shape and structure of something, often considered in three dimensions  (Webster's New World Dictionary 1964). Humans seem to find some forms more attractive than others. Form aids in the identification of objects, as, for example fecund females or healthy and strong males (Low 1979; Thornhill 1998). Form also may have been important in such things as landscape classification, evaluation, and orientation for mapping.

Pattern, Bateson (1972: 131) wrote, refers to "any aggregate of events or objects [that] can be divided in any way by a slash mark, such that an observer perceiving only what is on one side of the slash mark can guess with better than random success, what is on the other side of the slash mark." We refer to aggregates as patterns when that aggregate's extension can be predicted with greater than chance success. Pattern’s importance may lie in the advantages it confers in identifying and re-identifying objects, and thus in making choices (Hilbert 1987; Coe 1992).

In sum, visual art is a behavior that involves making art; the behavior of viewing art is implied. Art objects imply the behavior of making art.  One necessary condition of visual art seems to be that humans make it. A second necessary condition is that it involves the use of color, line, pattern, and/or form. A third necessary condition is that the color, line, form and pattern have no function other than to attract attention, perhaps by provoking emotion. They were not done to add structural support to a pottery vessel, prevent dental cares (in the case of tooth staining, or act as a preservative, such as in tanning of pelts. Humans have evolved the ability to respond to color, line, pattern and/or form. I argue that artists, and those who encouraged them, exploit this tendency in order to influence social behavior

A limitation of this definition is that it refers only to that art involving color, patterns, and/or form: the visual arts. It does not refer to poetry, storytelling, dance, or music, although they clearly involve patterns of sound or of movement that attract attention. Further, some will also feel that another limitation of this definition is that it assumes, but does not focus on, the large human brain, or any cognitive processes, or on any emotions associated with making and viewing visual art. While I assume these are involved in the production and appreciation of art, I have attempted to make my concerns about emotions and mental processes clear.

The primary value of this definition is that it is not only in agreement with the usage of the term visual art by a number of artists, philosophers, and social scientists, but that it also focuses on behavior, an objective phenomenon that is potentially measurable. By avoiding creativity, this definition facilitates the cross‑cultural study of art, making a dichotomy between contemporary and traditional art, or fine art and craft, unnecessary. Further, as artifacts imply behavior, we can use the term art when we refer to objects found in prehistoric sites, ethnographic societies, or in New York galleries. Finally, this definition has the advantage of making explicit an inheritable or replicable unit, which once was a central issue in evolutionary biology.

 

Creativity and Individualism

Creativity, most art scholars have argued, is a necessary element of art (Alexander 1990; Joyce 1976); some even argue it is a "human need" or "biological predisposition" (Dissanayake 1992: 82). The dictionary defines creativity as “resulting from originality of thought, expression” (p. 341). Creativity, objectively, refers to "deviating from the expected order" (Dissanayake 1991:82), or, in a word, innovation, identifiable change. While many people today see creativity as a necessary characteristic of visual art, Gombrich (1992:119), the art historian, argued that

our modern notion that an artist must be ‘original,’ was by no means shared by most people in the past. An Egyptian, a Chinese, or a Byzantine master would have been greatly puzzled by such a demand. Nor would a medieval artist of Western Europe have understood why he should invent new ways of planning a church, a designing a chalice, or of representing the sacred story when the old ones served the purpose so well.

“The lust for otherness, for newness,’ Bernard Berenson (1848: 155) wrote in his book Aesthetics and History, may seem to be the most natural and matter-of-course thing in the world; however, this lust for newness is neither ancient nor universal. In fact, he wrote,

Prehistoric races are credited with having had so little of it that a change in artifacts is assumed to be a change in populations, one following another. The same holds for the peoples of relatively recent or quite recent date like the Peruvians and the Mayas and Aztecs as well as the African and Oceanic tribes. Even people so civilized as the Egyptians changed so little in three thousand years that it takes training to distinguish a Saitic sculpture from one of the early dynasties. In Mesopotamia also change was slow. But for Alexander’s conquest, there might have been almost no newness in India, and but for the Buddhist missionaries as little in China. Why was there so little craving for novelty everywhere on earth?

It is important to take a moment here to explain that the words like traditional art, or conservative style, or ethnographic art, \ when used to refer to visual art, do not imply that the visual art will be simple or plain. The visual arts of China and Egypt, along with those produced in many parts of the world, were traditional; most would agree that they are attractive (some might prefer the words aesthetically pleasing). This visual art, however, was not creative in the sense of constantly changing or being highly innovative. Magnificent works of art have been produced without creativity and the artistic freedom that creativity implies. According to Hauser (1959: 29), “some of the most magnificent works of art originated…in the Ancient Orient under the most dire pressure imaginable [this proves] that there is no direct relationship between personal freedom of the artists and the aesthetic quality of his works.” Artists in traditional societies, in one important sense, are not merely individuals, they are links in a chain going back into the distant past and leading on into the future.

What creativity seems to imply is individualism, or behavior focused on oneself. This practice of using visual art to attract attention to oneself, as I have pointed out earlier, is fairly rare. Among traditional people, Hauser (1959:74) writes, one cannot find

an individual style or personal ideals or ambitions -- at any rate, there is no sign whatsoever that the artist cherished any feelings of this sort.  Soliloquies such as the poems of Archilochus or Sappho…the claim to be distinguished from all other artists which is advanced by Aristonothos, attempts to say something already said in a different, though not necessarily better fashion -- all this is quite new and heralds a development which now proceeds without a setback (apart from the early Middle Ages) to the present day.

In Africa, after many traditions had been lost, the Luba carvers referred to as the Buli Master and the Master of the Cascade Hairdo appeared (Vogel 1993). These carvers were recognized by the uniqueness of their art. 

Anthropologists recognized long ago that technical mastery was recognized and appreciated. “Even in the rudest societies,” Lowie (1940: 107) insisted, “some individuals greatly excel the rest in manual skill so that the most difficult tasks are entrusted to them.” Technical mastery, while not ignored, was not in any obvious way capitalized upon by the technical master. The great painters in China, Kriz & Kurz (1979: 114) explained, “do not seek honors and wealth, they avoid the climate of the court, and they give away their pictures.” Skill, rather than freeing a talented person, seems to present him or her with more obligations. Those who have mastered techniques not only have to make their own visual art objects, but they also have to help others make theirs. Further, technically well-made objects, as Weissner (1984: 204) has pointed out, communicate not only skill, but also the diligence, caring, and hard work of the artist. As techniques are a gift from ancestors to descendants, as well as a gift given to ancestors by descendants, diligence is a sign of respect for ancestors. To produce carelessly-made art is to disrespect the ancestors.

Our interest in and appreciation of the exotic behavior of many contemporary artists, who are artistic iconoclasts and seem to use their lifestyle to sell their work, does not mean that artists who are not exotic are not interesting, or without passion, or that they produce art that is not attractive. Tonkinson (1978), when discussing the individual behavior of the Mardujara, writes that while most adults were interesting and agreeable people of pleasant disposition, both sexes had a capacity for rapid and passionate arousal of emotions to a violent pitch. The emotions seen most often were anger or sorrow.

“Antisocial and excessive behaviors,” Tonkinson writes, are rare. They occur, he claims, “for a variety of possible underlying reasons: imperfect socialization, excessive egotism, madness, loss of control, quirks of personality, poorly controlled temper, and so on” (p. 121). For the Madujara, emotions that are likely to lead people into breaking ancestral law (e.g., strong dislike, egotism, covetousness, unbridled sexuality, malicious gossip) must be kept under control. Individuals who break ancestral law, Tonkinson writes, are held fully responsible for such acts. It is ironic perhaps, that characteristics seen as antisocial by the Aborigines (e.g., excessive egotism, poorly controlled temper, madness, quirks of personality), have been seen, on and off at least since the Renaissance, as evidence of artistic genius. In such a case, the artist him or herself  becomes that art - that which attracts and holds attention.  

 

       Symbol and Meaning

A widespread scholarly notion specifies that symbols are if not a sufficient condition of art, are a necessary condition. Today,  in common usage, the term symbol refers to an object associated with and serving to identify something (Roget's II 1988). A symbol, for example, can consist of colors, sounds, gestures, or visual images. Symbols are similar to signs in that both serve to communicate a message. Signs, however, serve as a marker for something specific  and often simple - such as a road sign indicating that the drive should stop,  A symbol, on the other hand, is said to represent something more complex and open to interpretation.  

Even though symbols are open to interpretation, the meaning of a symbol is often public. As art critic and philosopher George Dickie (1971: 121) explained, "the interpretation of symbols in paintings and literature is a public matter. Symbols such as halos have a conventional public or social meaning similar to the way in which words have public meanings." The meaning of a symbol is learned from other people, presumably through their speech. 

Some writers argue or imply that symbolism is perhaps a sufficient condition for art. Mithen (1999), for example, argues that art originated in large-brained humans who had developed the capacity to make and understand symbols. Green (1947z: 308) explained that "it is almost universally agred that if a composition in any medium deserves to be called a "work of art' it has some meaning" As Boas (1955:88) explained, however, "Not all societies have art that is meaningful or has associative connotations." Dissanayake (1992:90) writes that the "existence of non-symbolic designs and patterns in human societies suggests that making art is not in any causal or inevitable way dependent on  image making or symbolizing." Even "western art, Otten (1971:x) argued, "only partially and sporadically  carries this freight of prescribed symbolic meaning. Many objects, even natural objects, can become symbolic as they have “meaning.” We associate a certain place or event that occurred at that place or at that time. To some degree animals understand signs, if not symbols - the sound of a can opener can signify food or it is time to eat.  

Discussions of symbol and meaning often fail to address how the meaning of a symbol is actually transmitted between individuals; how, when it is social, individuals come to agree that it represents a particular thing. It becomes public. While researchers often agree that “common knowledge is a prerequisite to the functioning of the symbols” (Binford 1971:16), they seem to assume that the meaning of a symbol is in some as yet unspecified way transmitted from one human brain to another (Coe 1992). Or, perhaps viewers at a "preconscious or even unconscious level" recognize, through participation in a collective unconscious, a particular shape as a symbol of their "deepest aesthetic feeling" (Vinnicombe 1976: 350). However, unless humans read each other's minds or have a template in their brains that influences a response to a particular symbol, a symbol’s meaning implies an identified and remembered association with its referent (Coe 1992). The memory of this association is crucial to the meaning of any symbol; indeed, this association appears to constitute the meaning of a symbol. Meaning, in other words, is learned and to the extent its meaning it is shared, it is learned from others presumably through their behavior (speech and actions).

To omit meaning from the definition does not imply that art is meaningless; the omission rather suggests that before we can increase our knowledge of what is undone to art, we must separate art from any message to which it calls attention. It is perhaps for these reasons that Boas (1955:13) argued that a focus on symbols could obscure our study of art. Within a society, he mused, “there can be…considerable wavering about the meaning of a symbol” (p. 102); "in the designs of the Californian Indians, the same form will be called by different people or even by the same people at different times, now a lizard's foot, then a mountain covered with trees, then again an owl's claw."

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The aesthetic emotion

Emotion is something that is rarely studied by ethologists as they typically focus on behaviors, such as a message sent (an inflated red pouch on a frigate bird) and a response (females notice and mate with the male). Only a few ethologists concern themselves with any emotional response experienced by the female. Yet, in humans, emotions are a primary element of our studies of visual art. 

Scholars who define art typically define it by reference to the emotion it is said to arouse in both the viewer and the artists. This definition, while appealing, has a number of problems. 

First, it fails to distinguish what art is from what art does (e.g., arouse an emotion). 

Further, it runs the risk of being tautological, inferring a mental state from the art and then using the mental state to explain art (Lewis-Williams 1982). 

In addition, although the emotion aroused by art is said to be pleasure, much of art is said to arouse grave feelings, or it may leave the viewer bewildered, confused, non-plussed, unsure of any emotional reaction (Anderson 1979). Indeed, art may not arouse any emotion; it may arouse “no aesthetic interest” (Brothwell 1976). 

 I recognize, however, that the emotions associated with visual art are often said to be profound, arousing joy and leading to tears.  I also recognize, however, that not all viewers will share the same response.  

However, emotions are fleeting and difficult to articulate (Anderson 1979). Are we really safe in assuming that all dancers share the same emotions, thoughts, and/or beliefs?

A more serious issue here, however, is that emotions and mental processes probably exist because of their influence on behavior, particularly social behavior. An exclusive focus on art and emotion may lead us to ignore art’s social effects. The assumption that any emotions associated with a behavior imply that the behavior is necessarily adaptive can lead even scientific studies astray. Eating high fat foods can be pleasurable; eating many such meals could help promote an early death from chronic disease. While the scarcity of fat in our ancestors’ diet may have promoted our ancestors’ taste for fat, fats are no longer a dietary scarcity. Environments change, and behaviors that were once adaptive may no longer be adaptive. Similarly, although any emotions associated with art may suggest that it once was an adaptation, we cannot use these emotions to argue that it is currently adaptive.

The point of this discussion is not that thoughts or emotion, or even the presumed aesthetic emotion, are irrelevant to visual art. In fact, we can assume that visual art attracts us because it interests us, presumably by provoking some emotion. However, even if we assume that art does arouse an emotion, we still do not know what elicits the emotion. Is it aroused by the color, pattern, form, technique, or the experiences associated with the art object?

 

Visual art is made by humans

Virtually all discussions of visual art make the claim that visual art is manmade; it has a "human creator" (Dissanayake 1992:28). While I accept that only humans produce what we refer to as visual art, the question this raises is why humans regularly refer to the marks that animals make when given pigments and why we find natural objects (e.g.., sunsets, driftwood, colored stones) to be attractive, in the sense that they attract and hold our attention. Further, why do we seem to "art" to refer to those things. What is it about animal "art", sunsets and colored stones that lead people if not to refer to those events and objects as art why do they so often say that they attract and hold their attention? 

Ethologists use the metaphor animal “art” to refer to traits, both permanent and seasonal, that characterize a number of species. This “art” includes the brightly colored feathers of birds, the red belly of the stickleback fish, and the red pouch of the frigate bird (Darwin 1871; Diamond 1991). While these traits are highly influenced by genes, it seem clear that the opposite sex responds differentially  to animals with these characteristics.  Further, in regard to behavior, when elephants in the wild use their trunks to make marks in the dust or a stick to make scratch marks on the ground, this behavior can be referred to as “art” (Diamond 1991). When apes in the wild and in captivity were observed draping themselves with vines and pieces of cloth, Kohler (1925) referred to this behavior as “art.” Bowerbird nests, wove using hundreds of sticks and, at times, colored objects, such as crushed leaves or other objects, are referred to as “art” (Diamond 1991; Joyce 1975). Satin bower birds, who  make a “paintbrush” by nibbling a piece of bark into an appropriate shape,  hold this tool in their beak to control the flow of a paint solution used to decorate the bower (van Lawick-Goodall 1970). Gorillas, orangutan, chimpanzees, and monkeys living in captivity can master painting with a brush or fingers and can work with chalk, crayons, or pencils (Morris 1962). Even can experts find this “art” to be indistinguishable, from products accepted as constituting human visual art.

While the frigate bird’s pouch does not involve learning (unless the learning consists of how to use the pouch to maximum benefit), making and decorating a bowerbird nest involves significant learning. By watching other conspecific males, bowerbirds learn to build bowers that can be as much as nine feet high and weigh several hundred times the weight of the bird. Learning how to build the bower involves identifying the decoration that apparently makes the nest more attractive to a female. This can involve dragging decorations (brightly color objects, for example) dozens of yards (Diamond 1991).

The implicit definition of animal “art” seems to specify neither innateness, nor learning. Nor do all these example necessarily involve the expression of a particular emotion, with in the creation or the response. The necessary element of animal “art” often seems to be the modification of a body or object through the use of form, line, pattern, or color.  This decoration can, but does not necessarily attract attention to a message, including the message: “look at me or look at me and select me as a mate!” Elephants drawing in the sand and primates draping themselves with vines and cloth do not seem to be performing these activities for an audience. As the behaviors do not seem to be noticed, they presumably have no social effect; that is, they do not attract attention nor do the influence the behavior of an observer. They are neither patterned nor predictable.

So, we might draw several points out of this discussion. One is that we regularly use the term art to refer to other things - things in nature - that involve the modification of  a body or object (e.g., the bower). In many cases that modification attracts attention; the "art" is done to attract attention. Presumably, the "art" provokes a response - it attracts and holds our attention. This response can help explain why the "art" might be attractive to - attract the attention of - a female. 

The decoration need not attract attention. For example, some males in their finery are ignored. Perhaps the male's color is not vibrant enough or the pattern of the feathers is off in some way. For some reason that particular male is not successful in attractive females and presumably is less likely to become an ancestor and his genes will, over time, die out.  

Further, it is not clear why primates drape themselves with vines. No one appears to notice the "art." It has no social effect and it might be predicted that this behavior may not persist. It appears to have no regular effect and perhaps has some costs - attracting the attention of a competitor or another, dangerous species. While you may argue that the draping gives the primate some happiness, thus far it has not been able to identify primate emotions with great accuracy.  The emotion is merely assumed to underlie the behavior and then  used to explain the behavior. A final point, is that in nature we can observe things that closely resemble what we refer to as art. If we did not focus on an aesthetic emotion then perhaps we would include these as examples of art.