Art lives for Itself

Ever since the German Romanticism of Schiller and Goethe in
the early 19th century, many have viewed art as a Utopian escape
from reality, a zone of selfless self-expression, a higher plane of
being where genius sprouts lotus-like above the petty concerns of
the world. This Romantic view opposes art to nature, but also
opposes art to popular culture, art to market commodity, art to
social convention, art to decoration, and art to practical design. It
has often presented the artist as a male genius shunning the female
temptresses that would sap the vital fluids that sustain his
creativity. Thus, artistic success has also been seen as opposed to
sexual reproduction.
Perhaps it is not surprising that many modern artists have
adopted the ideology of these German philosophers. Romanticism
makes excellent status-boosting rhetoric for artists. It presents
them as simultaneously overcoming their instincts, avoiding
banality, striving against capitalism, rebelling against society, and
transcending the ornamental. The genius's need to shun sexual
temptation also provides a ready excuse for avoiding sleeping with
one's less attractive admirers. But this Romantic view makes no
attempt to offer a scientific analysis of art—indeed, it actively
rejects the possibility.
The kernel of truth in the Romantic view is that art is
pleasurable to make and to look at, and this pleasure can seem a
sufficient reason for art's existence. Its pleasure-giving power can
seem to justify art despite its apparent uselessness. But from a
Darwinian perspective, pleasure is usually an indication of
biological significance. Subjectively, everything an animal does may appear to be done simply to experience pleasure or avoid
pain. If we did not understand that animals need energy, we might
say that they eat for the pleasure of eating. But we do understand
that they need energy so we say instead that they have evolved a
mechanism called hunger that makes it feel pleasurable to eat.
The Romantic view of art fails to take this step, to ask why we
evolved a motivational system that makes it pleasurable to make
and see good art. Pleasure explains nothing; it is what needs
explaining.