Denis Dutton on the Art Instinct - Beauty, Pleasure, Human Evolution and Universal Laws

His latest book called The Art Instinct - Beauty, Pleasure and Human Evolution combines two fascinating and contentious disciplines—art and evolutionary science—in a provocative new work that will change forever the way we think about the arts, from painting to literature to movies to pottery. Human tastes in the arts are evolutionary traits, shaped by Darwinian selection. They are not, as the past century of art criticism and academic theory would have it, just socially constructed.