In my landscape architectural studies years ago, I was introduced to the work of geographer, Jay Appleton, who developed what he called "Prospect-Refuge Theory". The premise is that people prefer places that provide a feeling of protection or refuge and at the same time offer a view to their surroundings or prospect. Again the idea was based on an evolutionary perspective that such environments offered our ancestors the best chance for survival. Appleton argued that our modern concept of aesthetics is based on these ingrained survival instincts. To this day I continue to evaluate my work based on these concepts and find that the most popular places are imbued with prospect and refuge.

I paint because I delight in the colors and in finding an inviting and balanced presentation. I'm not too convinced with the "prospect and refuge" idea.

WHOA....BEST letter ever
CHEERS,Gail

Firstly, Robert, When do you find the time to read so much and still paint?? I’m amazed!
Professor Dutton is living in the Pleistocene period and much of his ideas haven’t entered the twenty first century. I will have to read this but there are so many holes in his theory from what you offer in commentary.
Early people didn’t have memories of “happy hunting grounds”. Those grounds were anything but happy. They were killing grounds where many of the tribesmen were injured or maimed by the prey they were hunting. Early hunting methods were primitive to say the least and many a hunter lost his life in the process.
If being inured with the outdoors and having it “etched” into our memories, why is it modern man rarely goes into the wilderness and chooses a cold one in front of the teley. Most if not all humans prefer the safety and comfort of a warm fire in an enclosed space, safe from predators. The outdoors was threatening and dangerous. That’s also why early man went into caves for protection and didn’t pitch camp in the open so to me the wilderness was something to get away from not embrace as homestead.
As for prospective mate gathering – here again I’m not so sure. If while painting on the cave walls, game passed the entrance and no effort were made to “gather” it, it would not endear one in the mate department. I would venture a wild guess that here is where the image of the “starving artist” may have evolved. Not to mention there are now many, many women doing art not to care if a man can do it to support them.
Women, throughout history, as with men, are attracted to all types and not especially artist types. History shows us that an artist “type” may actually have lost marital status due to the ambiguity and uncertainty of ever garnering a suitable income. Where is all this leisure time Professor Dutton speaks of for artists?
This other area of artist as “specialized fitness” personality holds as much water a sieve.
Throughout history the number of artists are many. More than I can count with more on the way. So much for specialization!
One thing said here is referring to “natural selection”. Here I have no comment and I’m in full agreement.
I believe we are drawn to bucolic art mostly because it’s benign and doesn’t challenge us.
It’s there for simple visual beauty. It does not cause stimulating thought or worry. It is easy to understand and appreciate with no art training or understanding on behalf of the viewer. It’s that simple.

Thanks, Rick, for a well-considered answer. As to what attracts us to certain works of art, I think it's many different things. Sometimes it's simply the colours & shapes, and how they interact (which would explain why some are attracted to abstract art). Sometimes a scene evokes a feeling, or a memory, and that is what attracts the viewer. It's different for everyone and it's different for every painting. But thank goodness it's there for that is what makes it worthwhile.

Professor Dutton may be fine philosopher but his suggestion that the appreciation of landscape painting is somehow connected to our neolithic roots is really quite a stretch. If such a notion is accurate why did it take 35,000 years for this penchant to show up in art history? The cave painters did not paint trees, nor rolling hills. Throughout most of art history landscapes play a very minor role, except as a backdrop for the main subject of the paintings. There are a few Greco/Roman "landscapes" preserved in Pompeii. These are very stylized and decorative, more akin to wallpaper or needle-work designs. Australian Aboriginal art certainly has Stone Age roots, but little of landscape imagery.

That landscape art is so universally popular is likely due to fall-out from the artistic triumph of Impressionism during the past 150 years. Monet and his friends created much more than an art movement. They seem to have created an epoch, For the style, with its landscape based subject matter, is still the most popular variety of painting worldwide.

Another supposition of Prof. Dutton's which seems rather dubious: "He views art-making as a skill that only an extraordinary individual could perform--a person who perhaps exhibited a degree of laid-back leisure and who didn't have to expend full resources on the basics." For one thing, the emergence of cave painting occurred during an ice age. Leisure was most probably distributed evenly and was seasonal. Winter was a long holiday sitting by a cave fire. There was little else a human being could do during the frigid sub-zero months out in the snowdrifts. And secondly, art making is NOT a skill that only an "extraordinary individual can perform." In my experience as an art teacher I have met about 10,000 kids. About 80% have learned to make credible drawings. About 40% have learned to draw with creativity and some sophistication. The most common feedback that I get from my students is something like, "Hey! Mr. Brown, I didn't know I could be an artist!" That is merely a sad commentary on the sorry state of art education in our modern world.

The art gene is widely distributed in the human population. What is lacking are the educational resources allocated in the early elementary years.

My husband, George and I have been working with an Eastern philosophy called: wabi sabi for many years in our separate studios and recently have collaborated to create a large body of work. The first concept for wabi sabi describes things that are imperfect, impermanent and incomplete. The sub-concept refers to work that is humble, modest and unconventional. We have read many books which help Westerners attempt to understand this complex but very inspiring way of thinking. One book, WABI SABI SIMPLE by Richard R. Powell was most useful. He lives in British Columbia so you may already know of his work.

We each have applied wabi sabi to various stages of our art and writing but when we embarked on 'green art' this concept gave us a better perspective to use. Recent Gulf storms created opportunities for 'recovered' materials. Painting on OSB (used to cover windows/doors) and placing broken sculpture for photographs in natural settings are some of the basics for our video. The title for the project is, "Now is when yesterday parts with tomorrow."

Thank you so much for doing what you do, and being who you are.
I love your twice-weekly letters. They seem to always speak to my core. That's a rare occurrence in my life...I'm an artist and stay-at-home-mom on 400 acres of farmland in the middle of Oregon. Most people around me don't seem to speak my language, but you do.
Thank you!!!
www.amycolors.com

My story is quite different from yours. I wanted desperately to be an artist, not for the sake of impressing anyone, but because the desire to create was so strong it made me cry sometimes that I could not. I actually felt tingling - an emotional pain - in my fingertips. This began when I was a child. My Grade 2 teacher told me I had absolutely no artistic talent when I asked her opinion. I loved colour so much that in that same year I actually did what I knew was wrong and stole money from my mother's purse and told the shopkeeper, who knew my mother had said no when I drooled over the box, that she had changed her mind; then deliberately used every crayon a bit so they could not possibly be returned. And yes, I got into deep trouble, and yes, guilt harangued me so much that I was not able to derive any pleasure from my ill gotten gains. A grade 7 art teacher also told me never to waste an art teacher's time, as a favour (to the art teachers?), so I didn't. As my children grew up, time finally permitted me to take up the study of art in spite of what my teachers had told me.

Unlike Dennis Dutton, I look on art and its creation differently. God created us in his image, and he is a creator. Hence the desire to create is in each of us to some degree, and art takes different forms. There are people who claim to be unable to create art yet create a business which employs many people. Others fulfill their desire to create through rearing children. Perhaps those who do not create are the unhappy people around us. When I create, I feel the pleasure of God. It is always fascinating to me how people attempt to tie evolution into everything. My faith is in God who cannot be seen but neither can evolution.

I've noticed over the years that not everyone started out creating art but done it as a last resort. Got to retirement age, had accidents, mental or physical disabilities before finding their muse. Some of us were or appeared to be born with the need to create. I personally had an interest in creating from the start. I also was very competitive and liked sports. My physical size (extremely small till 11th grade) kept me benched for most sports as I got older. Art was always there to fill that gap. For me it didn't win over any sweethearts nor created a following of awe seekers. It created a loner. Today, art had taking me to places that otherwise I would have never went. And I have made many friends with people that otherwise would never have met had our paths not of crossed through art. We are still competitive and want to be individuals yet we know that we are a brotherhood of a greater entity. It's all I ever wanted to be.

"He views art-making as a skill that only an extraordinary individual could perform--a person who perhaps exhibited a degree of laid-back leisure and who didn't have to expend full resources on the basics. This evolved artistic character could also be seen as taking part in casual, exploratory pursuits, the outcome of which was often unknown."

As per usual it is assumed that 'cave-men' would do this. The description above accurately describes what women do all the time. I have always posited cave-women where trying to attract the alpha-male and decorated their homes.

"The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed." Carl Jung (1875 - 1961)

I just have a little snippet that I wish you would one day address.
COMPETITIONS> I tell a really fine artist friend of mine that did not get in that the judge did not see her work that the gallery or club picked what they wanted in the show. I feel the same way that Alan Wolton feels and says on his page: that competitions are for scientists and art is so personal that it is a manner in which a person speaks or sees or hears so how can one judge this and put a prize price on it. I know she reads your articles so I would hope one day you could address this. Some of the greatest artists in our day never once did a competition. Andrew Wyeth is the first to come to mind. I would rather be all that I can be as an artist and convey the beauty that I see rather than getting a pat on the back from a so called peer because when I was struggling to get to that point where was that peer then. Oh well I could go on and on but I hope this finds you anxious to attack a long sought out answer for many of us. And who knows maybe you disagree.
http://www.ctcummins.com/contact.htm

With regards to Anitta's comments on being told "not to waste an art teacher's time", I think it is criminal that anyone would tell a child that! I had a well-known artist tell me once that she had been told that in art school, and her mother said, "you're sticking with it, we've paid for the year!" And she did, and went on to become a war artist, and one of Canada's best known artists. We may not always see where the Muse will take an individual, they have to unfold into their vision as they mature, and experience what it is they want to express. And with further regard to Pollock, he wasn't very good at drawing, but was innovative with colour and "line", the drips and splashes he made with such success. The teacher may not see the potential there, so shouldn't judge too hastily. To destroy someone's passion is ruthless!

Am I the only guy wondering why our ancestors didn't draw each other on those walls ??? Where are the cave pinups? Where is Gary Larson when we need him ??

In answer to Caveman, Google Chauvet Cave. Amongst the spectacular 30,000 yr old drawings of bears, lions, and perhaps the most elegantly drawn horse heads you have ever seen, are several human vulvas in the deepest reaches of the cave. It is a fantastic web site. Robert did not choose to publish my rebuttal to Prof. Dutton whose theory seemed pretty lame to me. I do not think that art is about "extraordinary" people. Talent is just misunderstood intelligence. And while one can say that people make art, if one studies cave art, it seems that it is more true that art made people. Chauvet cave was discovered in 1992 or so. It is truly fabulous, you should check it out.

My big question is - why are there no bad cave paintings? Chauvet cave art is very old and it humbles my art pretentions. They seemed to have used scraping. There is a coffee table book available.

Thank you, moderater, for posting my letter. PWB

How true. But I found that one’s orientation and “talent” for drawing tends to spread to everyday actions, such as making lovely studied balanced calligraphic notes to friends, or designing one’s own greetings cards. Many of mine are ‘expected’ each year and collected and sometimes framed by recipients. For those of us who either did not have the courage or the urge or the conviction to make art our career, this talent serves to widen our social capital, as so aptly reflected in the letter.

I would be pleased to have the website address of Denis Dutton's Art and Letters Daily. Thank you very much. Here in South Africa the art scene has also become very quiet but I am taking the opportunity to read and study more on my weak points, and there are many, and looking to improve on work I have already done. As you say, we must keep working.

My wife, Brenda, is a plein air painter and shows at festivals and galleries here in Central Florida and elsewhere. I sometimes sit with her at the tedious festivals and we have noticed, manly-type, men with hunting caps, say, or pro-bass tournament shirts on who will enter Brenda's booth and stare and stare at a certain landscape before the woman who owns that particular man, comes and extracts him. (As an aside, we’ve noticed also, it seems to be the women who will decide which art will be bought and which won’t.)
I used to joke to Brenda, mimicking this every-man’s thinking; ‘(grunt), much good fishing this spot…’ or ‘(grunt) me kill last winters deer that far hill…’
Brenda does capture a likeness of our Central Florida wilderness like no other. And there was no other explanation for why these men were transfixed by her images. And then your Dutton piece came along and we were thrilled to read his words confirming the ideas surrounding the very practical reasons art has existed at all much less thrived. Which brings me to prospective mates; Brenda has said that 35 years ago, when she walked into my studio apartment, she knew I was a good candidate as mating material. Among other things, an oil painting was started on an easel it my dinning area, with tubes of paint and dirty brushes spread about.