The term paleoanthropsychobiological was coined by author and art history major Ellen Dissanayake. The term is an adjective that she likes to use to describe how art encompasses human history, all human societies, and that art is a “psychological or emotional need and has psychological or emotional effects”(15). She combines an approach to art through Paleolithic, anthropological, and biological terms to speak about the idea of what art is really for. The way that she sees it “art must be viewed as an inherent universal (or biological) trait of the human species”(15).

When Dissanayake is talking about the phrase “making special” she is referring to the way that humans put a value onto things that they care deeply about. It is a phrase that she likes to use in referencing back to how art making and and experiencing art are human behaviors. I think that “making special” is related to art because humans tend to put a value on art as it usually evokes some sort of emotional response. In that sense art has moved from being a “form” to being a form that we care deeply about. In relation to human survival if we did not put value on certain things or have a strong personal connection to the world we live in it would turn us from the intricate and emotional beings that we are, to lifeless walking blobs of skin, bones, and fat. We “make special” our world because if we didn’t I think we would lose every sense of emotion that art evokes.

Three different theories/movement/periods that came to my mind were the Renaissance, modernist and post-modernist periods. The Renaissance movement was alive and well during the medieval time period where Renaissance artists “gradually replaced God-centered with man centered concerns” and the work focused on “using craftsman-lie standards of beauty, harmony and excellence” (16).  In the modernist period, stemming out of the 18th century, works focused even more about aesthetics. The focus of this theory was on defining what “fine” works of art were by being in a “special frame of mind for appreciating works of art–a ‘disinterested’ attitude”(17).  The works of art that met this criteria were ones that “became a world in itself, made solely or primarily as an occasion for this kind of detached aesthetic experience, which was considered to be one of the highest forms of mentality”(18). Postmodernism took place in the 20th century and was a theory that focused on questioning the values that the elite had put on works of art. Postmodernists idea was that rather than assume that “art reflects a unique and privileged kind of knowledge” it instead “points out that any ‘truth’ or ‘reality’ is only a point of view”(19).

This weeks TED talk video was easily one of my favorite TED talks that I have seen to date. I have taken a few other AAD classes and one of the universal questions in each course has been “What is art?” or “What do we consider art?” and every persons answer is different. I would not say that any answer I have heard or given has been right or wrong. Although many times the explanation given has never fully satisfied me. In this TED talk focusing on what beauty is, was such a different stance on how beauty and art are related, and exactly why we come to consider things to be “art.” To me I think that art can be seen in everything and everyone that we encounter each and every day. We were all born with the senses to see beauty in many different things, from drawings and paintings, to people and landscapes or even through plates of food. What was so interesting about this TED talk is that Dutton challenged the idea that instead of beauty being in the “culturally conditioned eye of the beholder” it is rather engraved in our minds because of the way our human psychology evolved from evolution. It is more than our culture or our values causing us to feel an esthetic appreciation or an emotional connection to something with beauty. The example that he gives about the landscapes that are similar to the Savannah landscapes in which we evolved from and how all across the world people are drawn to it whether they had seen or lived in areas like this was so eye opening for me. I had never thought about the fact that the forked tree, low grasses, presence of water in front, indications of animals and a path was seen in so many different forms from paintings to calendars to postcards and that people are always intrigued by it. Then I really took a second to think about it he was right. How many times have we gone to a doctors office, or worked in an office or gone to a restaurant where we see a painting like this hanging and can’t help but have our eyes be drawn to it for a period of time? How many of us, especially living in Oregon will take time to seek out places like this and hike to them as a past time? Do we do it because we have been taught in our culture to admire and value these scenes and seek them out? Or have we evolved from these very scenes and instinctually know that this is beauty and we should admire it?