Why do we make art?
“Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine, and at last, you create what you will. ”
Every civilization, in every part of the world where man has lived since Homo sapiens first walked the earth, has produced art. The question is, why? It is obviously an important means of communication; if had not proved so useful, our early ancestors would have stopped using it.
That all shows how we used art to convey information about ancestry and other culturally and spiritually important topics. But why are humans are so creative — driven to create something out ofnothing — and therefore want make art?
One area of the human experience that seems not to have parallels out in nature is the arts. Indeed, only a few animal species exhibit even the faintest hints of creative artistry.
There is an Indian artist named Siri, whose drawings — ranging from abstract works to representational landscapes and self-portraits — have sold for thousands of dollars. As described in many articles and broadcast pieces, she trained for many years, and can now dash off a painting in mere minutes.
Siri is a 50-year-old Asian Elephant.
Species closer to us, like orangutans, chimpanzee and gorillas, have all been taught to draw and paint. Like Siri, some have proven to be quite good at it. But they don’t do it proactively. In every instance, people have prompted them to do so, while man himself has always made art. When our early ancestors looked up at the cave wall, dimly lit by a dying fire, they saw a canvas.
But why? It is in fact our nature; creativity is big part of being human. It provides us with beauty that can inspire, protects and keeps us safe, helps us recall past events or emotions, brings us together, and aids in communication and education. In an excellent article entitled ‘Why Do Humans Make Art?’ from Nathan Lents, Professor of Biology at the City University of New York, he list a number of reasons:
Expression of beauty
If you look back in history, humans have produced art for one simple reason – it is an expression of beauty. Regardless of how you define beauty, I suggest that nature and art are both inherently beautiful. Admiring a famous painting, listening to fantastic piece of music or a stunning sculpture can inspire, emotionally move us, and provides total relaxation as we live in the moment.
But art is very subjective, as what one person thinks is beautiful, another sees no beauty. However, universally, everyone will find art that will dazzle and take our breath away. This provides either a visual or audio stimulus that makes us feel alive. Art makes us human.
A tool for survival
As humans evolved, so too did the ability to share valuable information which helped them to survive. Think of stories told around the campfire about the man who escaped the bear, or the woman who found a leaf to cure stomach sickness. These stories could also be communicated through song, dance, drawing and painting.
The hunting and gathering way of life common among our early ancestors required extensive visual memory. How else could they have accomplished the fashioning of simple tools, deciphered the migratory patterns of big game on the African savannah and organized effectively coordinated group hunting? These complicated skills require the comparison of current visual cues with past experience in a computational, predictive, replicable way.
Further still, the ability to make and use tools, a skill that began in apes and exploded in humans, requires a great deal of visual and tactile memory. It would be common sense to ‘paint’ this thing down for other members of the tribe.
Aids communication and education
As language was developing in humans, it allowed us to begin teaching each other about the tools they’d made, the food they found, the dangers they encountered and the skills they’d perfected, whether they were just crude drawings made by dragging sticks in the dirt, or more elaborate drawings on stone ‘canvases.’ Again, the key feature was the ability to use visual representations to induce memory recall or visual understanding, allowing another human to comprehend and remember something.
Though we may differ in our understanding of certain art forms, there is no question that creativity that leads to art is part of every culture and community around the globe. People have been creating music, dancing, painting, drawing, telling stories and bringing all these art forms together in ever-changing ways for untold generations.
Being creative makes us human. It separates us from the animal kingdom. Today, we get joy from the beauty we see in a painting or hear in a piece of music. They help us to relax by bringing down our stress levels. We live in a digitally connected world where, in an instant, I can learn new things from listening to a TED Talk, reading a blog or following someone on Twitter. I can instantaneously share this new information with whomever I like, and they can pass it onward with the push of a button.
All of this provides opportunities that make us more creative. Through our creativity, we can ‘teach’ our family, friends, peers and the next generation by sharing our experiences, knowledge and wisdom. Even though we probably don’t recognize it, everyone is a teacher because everyone is creative. Every day, no matter who you are, where you reside or what you do, you inevitably teach someone something new, and you will be taught something new yourself.
I cannot emphasize enough the importance of creativity at the centre of our nature. Embrace and celebrate that fact. If, by your upbringing or education, you’ve been led to believe that you aren’t creative, then that wrong can now be put right. You are an awesome creative machine, and once you’ve accepted that, you will be on the road to unlocking your imagination and creating fantastic new things.
This extract is taken from Neil Francis’s new book, ‘’The Creative Thinking Book – how to ignite and boost your creativity’’, which will be published on 29th September. It can be pre-ordered from this website, https://www.neil-francis.com/shop-1/p/the-creative-thinking-book, any other good book shops or Amazon.
www.neil-francis.com