Evolutionary Constraints on Creativity in the Visual and Plastic Arts

Abstract

The visual and plastic arts represent a fundamental arena for human creativity and aesthetics, lying at the intersection of the sciences and the humanities. In this chapter, I examine the extent to which evolutionary pressures-taking the form of canalized aesthetic biases building on fundamental psychobiological mechanisms-may still persist, in strongly constraining the practice of human art-making. I lay out the empirical evidence bearing on the nature and potential flexibility of such constraints; teasing out some implications, I also address prospects for the long-term sustainability of coherent creative traditions. The latter issue is of special contemporary importance, given the abundantly documented pressure for aesthetic innovation and novelty, which over time comes into progressively harsher conflict with our evolutionarily constrained aesthetic preferences.