Paleoanthropsychobiological is a term that Ellen Dissanayake coined which is built from a number of root words. Paleo meaning old; anthro which means human; psych as in mind; and biological which is the study of life. So all of these roots together would literally be defined as the study of the old human mind and life. But in Dissanayake’s definition, she explains that,“First, that the idea of art encompasses all of human history; second, that it include all human societies; and third, that it accounts for the fact that art is a psychological or emotional need and has psychological or emotional effects” (1). The author uses this term to describe the idea of art, as said in the quote.

Dissanayake goes by the phrase, “making special” when relating personal significance to specific activities or things. This relates to art because art itself is a creation made from personal creativity, which makes things special by its uniqueness. For example, art can come from a variety of different things like by baking and decorating a cake. It could just be an ordinary cake, but you can ‘make it special’ by using your own creativity to make it an original work of art. Her phrase also has to do with human survival because “looking at all humans as members of one species and then thinking of art as a “kind of behavior that developed as they evolved, to help them survive” (2). The uniqueness and specialty of human survival is based off of evolution, as art evolves, human survival does as well through innovation.

The author identifies many different periods of art throughout European history. Three different theories of art that Dissanayake mentions in her essay include the Renaissance, which was the art of the 14^th century, the Modernism which was in the 18^th century, and the Postmodernism of the 20^th century. First off, the Renaissance was an era where “replace God-centered with man-centered”. Basically, they just focused on aesthetics of man. Next was the Modernism period when art was referred as an ideology and “disinterested” art. This was when art became more abstract, “taste and beauty that govern all the arts and indeed make them not simply painting or status, but examples of fine art” (3). This allowed many views to see art individually. Lastly, there was the Postmodernism, and this is defined as broad art, where interpretation was based on perspectives and artists “interprets art according to their invididual and cultural sensibilities” (6). This era most importantly ceased “high” art standards of the modernists.

Art has many interpretations and perceptions built into it, but in the article,  Art for Life’s Sake”, Ellen Dissanayake, the author described art as “paleoanthropsychobiological” which has many roots. This word that Ellen uses as an adjective can be broken down in pertaining to paleo meaning old or history, anthro-human, psych-mind and bio-life. But in the text, paleoanthropsychobiological is defined as “First, that the idea of art encompasses all of human hisotry; second, that it includes all human societies; and third, that it accounts for the fact that art is a psychological or emotional need and has psychological or emotional effects” (1). The author describes that over time, the interpretation of art has changed. I’m wondering, what the reason was for art to be innovated? Back in history, the Westerns, mainly focused on the Greeks and medieval period, art was recognized as the five unprecedented changes which were “a gradual secularization of society, the rise of science, the social or interpersonal changes, emphasis on reason and the great political revolutions between America and France” (2-3). During this time, Ellen claims that Western art in the past was not necessarily considered artsy, but was focused more generally on the beauty and excellence of the Renaissance era. But since art back then was only focused on the Greeks and the medievals, would this kind of art be universally accepted as art?

Dissanayake only talks about the Western side of the globe throughout her entire article, I want to know more about why she only discusses the Western region’s perspective on art and what the other regions’ perspectives are. For example, the art history in Asia. Or was there only the discovery of art and art interpretations in the West? She also discusses in the text, “Art had become if not a religion, an ideology whose principles were articulated by and for the few who had leisure and education enough to acquire them” (4). Does this mean only those with an education about art, knew how to interpret art?