In the book “What is art for” written by Ellen Dissanayeke, she coined a word to expressed her view about art and this word is “paleoanthropsychobiological”. We can separate this word into three part to understand. The first part is palaeolithic which means since the palaeolothic or even earlier, the art has existed and it encompasses all of human history. The second part is anthropological which means art includes all human societies.The third part is psychological which means art is a kind of psychological need and it also has psychological effects.
Making special is a kind of human behavior. People have this kind of behavior because they have some particularly things to care deeply about or some activities’s outcome has strong important significance. From this, we can find that people not only can recognize special things, but they also can deliberately to make something special. The author gave an example in her book, in the hunting societies, when people got ready to hunt, hunters would do some special activities before the hunt like pray, bathe or obey food. According to these activities, the author said “ This control of their behavior and emotions can be interpreted as a way of vicariously demonstrating the control they desire in order to successfully achieve their goal” (p 23). So it seems that the behavior of making special is unrelated to aesthetic.But just like the author says “ When one exerts control, takes pain, and uses care and contrivance to do one’s best, the result is generally what is called artistic or aesthetic”( p 23) From this, we can find that making special is indeed related to art. Dissanayeke then talks about making special in ritual ceremonies to prove that it is relate to human survival. She uses ritual ceremonies as an example because she believes “ the shaping and elaborating of behavior and of the material would that we today call the arts were necessary to the performance of ritual ceremonies” ( p 23). People made the ceremony pleasurable and compelling. This can strengthen people’s feeling of affiliation and it is more helpful for them to unite. So it is essential for them to survive during the hard times.
When Dissanayeke shows us the history of western european art, she identifies many different theories. When she talks about the modernism , she mentions a “disinterested” attitude to appreciate art. She says “ “Disinterest” implied 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” (p 18). This can show the “universal” of art. Also, art was not mainly about religion, people gave art another kind of knowledge and this was the idea of art for art’s sake. Dissanayeke says this idea “ suggesting that art had no purpose but to “be” and to provide opportunities for enjoying an aesthetic experience that was its own reward, and that one could have no higher calling than to open oneself to these heightened moments” ( p 18). The theory for pro-modernism is very different from that of modernism. It denied the “ disinterest” attitude. About this, the book shows “ To claim that one can appreciate works form alien cultures is an imperialistic act of appropriation-molding them to one’s own standards while blatantly dismissing or ignoring the standards of their makers and users” (p 19). From this, the art is not universal and not “high”. However, pro-modernism has its own problems, Dissanayeke mentions in her book “Postmodernism abandons the crumbling edifice of modernist authority for an equally uninhabitable and esoteric anti structure of relativism, cynicism, and nihilism thatcher that I claim does not have to be the inevitable outcome of the matter” (p 21). To solve the contradiction between modernism and promodernism, the author provide her own theory. She believes art is a normal human behavior. She introduces a view and it is “ species-centered”. This view “ will regard all humans as alike in having the same fundamental needs” (p 210.She then explains this with a lot of examples. She states that since ancient times, people like to make things special deliberately. In ritual ceremonies, making special is helpful for people to get together tightly and will be help them survive during cruel surroundings. After these examples, she concludes “ If you carry one idea away from my talk I hope will be this: art is a normal and necessary behavior of human beings that like talking, playing, working, socializing, learning, loving and nurturing should be encouraged and developed in everyone” (p 26).

For me, art was always elegant, special and mysterious. If you want to explore the real meaning behind an art of work, you need to have money, time and also enough knowledge. It seems that not everyone can appreciate art. After reading some pieces of Ellen Dissanayake’s book “What is art for”, I decide to change my view for art and think about it in a totally different way. In the beginning, when Dissanayeke talks about art, I noticed that she uses an interesting word to expresse art. This word is “palaeoanthropsychobiological” (p 15). It means art actually have existed for a long time in our history and can include all cultures. Also, art is an expression of people’s emotion or psychology. After introducing this word, Dissanayeke states her views further and she says “My palaeoanthropsychobiogical view is that in order to include human history, human cultures, and human psychology, art must be viewed as an inherent universal (or biological) trait of the human species, as normal and natural as language, sex, sociability, aggression, or any of the other characteristics of human nature” (p 15). So art is not that far away from our life, actually it always stay with us. To prove her view, Dissanayeke then mentions the history of art from medieval times until now. In the medieval society, art was god-centered. As the society developed, people’s self-awareness had a dominate place and art became man-centered. After that, modernism arose and claimed that art is superior and only belongs to people who have leisure time and education. To oppose modernism, postmodernism became popular and stated that appreciating art can be everyone’s activity. Actually, these transforming and development just reflects that art making is a normal human behavior because people inherently like to make things special. The special creation can make people with the same perspective and values get together. Through art, they find the resonance and become more unite. So art can help them to survive during the hard times. Along with human history, it seems that art is a kind of people’s born ability and it is the sake for life. Just like Dissanayeke said “ If you are to carry one idea away from my talk I hope that it will be this : art is a normal and necessary behavior of human beings that like talking , exercising, playing, working, socializing, learning, loving and nurturing should be encouraged and developed in everyone” (p 26).