Is Art Hardwired Into Our Genetic Code?

Dennis Dutton points out that “the pictures of landscapes that are most pleasing to most people — the scenes of pastures, copses, gentle hills, rivers, the odd furry animal and signs of human habitation, found on calendars and chocolate boxes worldwide — are what our long-ago ancestors in the Pleistocene learned to associate with a temperate climate, fresh drinking water, plentiful game and places to hide from predators.”