In this week article, the author, Dissanayake, discussed about the history of the western idea of art, what she called “Palaeoanthropsychobiological”. “Palaeoanthropsychobiological” suggests art is a psychological or emotional need and has psychological or emotional effect, encompassing all human history and including all human societies (Dissanayake 1). She indicated that “art is inherent universal trait of human species (1)”. She briefly introduced the history of how western idea of art changing through time. Through this timeline, she showed us how the idea of art changing in different times.

In the video, Denis Dutton, the speaker introduced the relationship between art, or say, the beauty related with theories from Charles Darwin: Natural selection and Sexual Selection. in his example of peacock, the beautiful tail of male peacock is chosen by the nature to attract more peahen to increase the possibility of his reproduction. In addition, not only in natural world, but also human’s production, are included in this natural selection system. For example like the hand axes and cave painting he mentioned in lecture. In his lecture, he also showed us several examples about how he believed beauty is universal. Like the music of Beethoven and the literature of Shakespeare. The beauty of their art, are adored overseas.” There are many difference among arts, but there are also universal, cross-culture, a static pleasure and values.

Many people believes that how to define beauty is quite different among different cultures, while in general, there are difference, but the similarity, the universality of beauty are still the majority.  the I am quite agree with the idea that how natural evolution can gradually influence humans’ beauty-appreciation.