Paleoanthropsychobiological is a term coined by Ellen Dissanayake which describes the idea of art in three parts. First being that the idea of art encompasses the history of the human race; second that it takes into account and incorporates all human cultures and societies, and third that it examines the idea that art has a psychological and emotional effect on our underlying needs as humans.
When Dissanayake uses the phrase to “make special” she is referring to the fact that humans tend to put a higher emphasis on the things/activities that we care more deeply about and have a personal implication for. This directly relates to art and human survival because at the time, as Disannayake points out, “art was not for its own sake at all, but for the sake of the performance of ritual ceremonies” (24). Art single handedly made these ceremonies “pleasurable” so people wanted to continue them and it also made them “memorable” so people wouldn’t forget them. However, it wasn’t these ceremonies per se that art held such an important role in but rather, as Dissanayake states, “it was the emotional bonding of the participants that gave the ceremonies survival value. The making special, the touching of or entering an extraordinary realm…the unifying self-transcendent emotions that were called forth which demonstrated the like mindedness, the oneheartedness of the group so they would work together in confidence and unity” (25). This was the deeper meaning of heart that was so vital to human survival.
The first movement that Dissanayke refers to in her article takes place during the medieval times which take place from 500 to 1500. She states that, “renaissance artists gradually replaced God-centered with man centered concerns, but their works continued to portray a recognizable world… using craftsman like standards, beauty, harmony and excellence”(16). This means that, as time progressed, human artists slowly geared their artwork toward worldly things that related more towards their personal concerns rather than previous art pieces that were geared more towards religion.
The second movement that Dissanayake refers to in her article is Modernism. This movement took place during the 18th century and ultimately gave way to what Dissanayake refers to as “aesthetics, a concern with elucidating principles such as taste and beauty that govern all the arts and indeed make them not simply paintings but examples of fine art (17).” Modernism also paved the way to a “disinterested attitude”. This attitude implies that, “viewers could appreciate any art, even the artwork of eras or cultures far removed from their own, whether or not they understood the meaning the works had for the people who made and used them” (17). The bottom line is that art can now be understood by everyone rather than only a select few.
The final movement/era that Dissanayake refers to is the Postmodernism era of artwork. This era started around the middle to late 20th century and is a sharp contrast to the modernism view. Dissanayake states that, “postmodernist artists deny the integrity of individual arts by using hybrid mediums” (20). She also states that the individual and cultural sensibilities of these this new kind of art, “represents the worldview of elite”(19). In short, in order to understand the underlying meaning of these new sophisticated and elite pieces of art then it implies that you must have come from some type of elite background.