Modern art as attack more than art (from the archive)

Art and Sexual Selection

Art seems to have grown out of sexual selection, if so, then women should be better at discerning art, because they have needed to be acute in judging the authenticity of men, since they pay a heavier price with the long-term care of babies if they judge wrong. But the desire of men to impress women might help explain, at least unconsciously, why their are more top men artists and male art critics than women. Homosexuals in the arts, at least in these times, might also explain some of the disparities in the sexual selection-discernment hypothesis.

This gets confusing when we consider the stereotypical common man who says he hasn't a clue as to what color goes with what, especially since men are trying to impress women in sexual selection and should therefore care about the way they look. Perhaps women give central importance to the money or position a man has, at least beyond the teen years, and they just kind of overlook his lack of color harmonizing.

In any case, this connection with sexual selection is probably the way to study art origins (see Dutton's “The Art Instinct) ), which gets us away from the absurd and phony abstractions that define postmodern art. High art (low art too) can then be seen sociobiologically as an affirmation of what the group holds sacred, since the group is the main unit of selection over the long term. 

Modern art as attack more than art

Atonal music actively attacked tonal music, otherwise tones would have now and then occurred, Schoenberg had to consciously avoid tones, as Dutton pointed out. But modern art in general does this too, actively attacking realism, meaning and order, as if to destroy it. Why? Why the anger? Why the desire to destroy? And they were triumphant! They conquered the art world!

People have not, by and large, to this day accepted contratonal music or modern/postmodern art, in spite of its strong promotion, and in spite of the taunts that people are just too lazy to appreciate it. The human mind is not infinitely malleable, not a blank slate. People prefer meaning, order, which are evolutionary traits developed in the minds of our Paleolithic ancestors, mainly because this strengthened social health and helped us survive. Individual artists also used art in the game of sexual selection. Real art throughout human history grew out of these dynamics and out of this human nature.

This says to me that atonal music and modern art were not really a legitimate development in art history but were mainly an attack on the order and meaning of Western culture, more like an abortion, as someone once called it. Who did the attacking, and why? This needs to be brought out more. Was there a pattern?  Names, groups, need to be named. I know years ago Tom Wolfe did a great job in “The Painted Word” exposing the sham of modern art, but more needs to be done, as we try to exhume the meaning of real art from the old battlefield.