Art Created Humanity, Not the Other Way Around
How art invented humanity
In this provocative essay, the author argues that art is not a human invention but a force that shaped human consciousness and society. Drawing on evolutionary biology, archaeology, and philosophy, the piece explores how early artistic expressions—from cave paintings to ritual objects—played a crucial role in the development of language, cooperation, and abstract thought. The essay challenges conventional views, suggesting that our ancestors did not simply create art; rather, art created us.
We did not invent art; art invented us.
- hammock
“Only humans produce ecstatic art”
I guess they have never heard of the bowerbird: https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/eptuty/b...
- Jun8
Thought-provoking article. When the cave painters were at work, they most probably didn’t see themselves as “artists” and of course not scientists, philosophers. That was an age where all those things were together at once, living in a religious state, I think. Little by little, they separated (to sometimes unhappy results). Brings to mind the old myth where humans were both male and female originally, but gods, fearing their power, separated them, leading us to look for our half. Same with art and science, I think.
So while Picasso is perhaps right to say “We have invented nothing “ as quoted in the article when he means art is as old as humans, the realization that something is art, is perhaps invented afterwards.
I also reject the two kinds of art thesis that’s proposed here:
“It follows that there must also be two kinds of art – similarly different and yet, somehow, complementary. The first is what I call artifice: art conceived so as to confirm, reinforce and extend the empire of facts in which we ordinarily live. … Examples come readily to mind: propaganda, pornography and advertising; sentimental, moralistic or didactic art”
Many current artists would lump, say, paintings by Old Masters into this category. Facing the statue of David past month in Florence, it was eye opening how much such a classic statue of a human can move people!
- stillpointlab
One of my craziest ideas is that language created minds and not the other way around. One view of history is that humans evolved brains sufficient to host language, invented language, and then our brains grew around language.
My crazy idea is basically the thesis of this article except swap out "art" and swap in "language". In my view, art is just one form of expression. That is, language predates life.
Although, language is a bit provocative, and I probably mean something closer to semiotics.
- d4ng
“The basic realism of science, then, rests upon the following claim: the Universe is such that facts can be plainly stated within it, even though the facts themselves need not be plain.”
What facts can plainly be stated within this universe? Can facts exist outside the common language within which they are expressed?
- Papazsazsa
Author's argument is that when early humans painted, they weren't expressing an interiority they already had; they were engaging the creative process of reality directly.
I disagree in the sense that reality includes the intangibles which machines cannot (today) reach, which is why any LLM-generated art is, for the most part, not art. It's images, it can be aesthetic or narrative or whatever – but I think it's fine to gatekeep art as an inherently human thing.