Exploring Art within Human Nature
Exploring Art within Human Nature When discussing art it has continuously been examined how much it is applied to human nature. In The Art Instinct by Denis Dutton he spend an entire chapter discussing the colorations between the two. Art can be seen in human nature through its history, it’s comparison to language, and its creation from humans through genetics and their tendencies. Language has always been considered a part of human nature. All culture through all ages has some manner of language. Though it changes throughout the world with over six thousand known types, the universal ability to communicate is unquestionable “Despite vocabulary and surface grammar differences … languages are never mutually incommensurable … This is possible because language structure is shared across cultures and because languages are ties to universal prelinguistic interests, desires, needs, and capacities (30). Language is cross-cultural and though the mannerism and speech are different they are all inherent in their ability. At the same time one cannot argue that each language and gesture changed throughout the different culture. This is how language can be considered so universal in human nature. Art can be said to have the same universality of language. Like language it has transcended through all cultures and history. Different cultures all express them in a different way, and though everyone doesn’t necessarily understand all others cultures art, it is still a human universals. Also like language, art has the innate ability throughout all societies. Art in many way is very comparable to the human nature of language “The field of natural languages resembles the field of art considered cross-culturally: both exhibit an interplay between, on the one hand, deep, innate structures and mechanisms of intellectual and emotional like and, on the other hand, a vast ocean of historically contingent cultural materials” (31). With these many colorations art appears essentially