Dicembre 2016 e ditoriale

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SAMI DI

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2016

Nuova Secondaria - n. 4 2016 - Anno XXXIV - ISSN 1828-4582

The text

The text (765 words) is taken from Manwatching. A Field

Guide to Human Behaviour (1977) by Desmond Morris,

the English zoologist, ethologist and surrealist painter

who has also become a popular writer in the field of so-

ciobiology. The book itself is an encyclopaedia of human

gestures and actions whose patterns it investigates. The au-

thor originally recorded about 3000 different body ac-

tions and then, by doing scientific research at Oxford Uni-

versity, made them into a book enriched by a huge num-

ber of photographs, by which he founded the modern sci-

ence of Body Language. The extract is actually a scientific,

semi-philosophical essay written at the present tense, with

lots of abstract lexis, but mainly of Latin origin. It dis-

cusses aesthetic behaviour and the concept of beauty,

which is a topic that the candidates have certainly dealt

with, though often from a different point of view, on their

literature and art courses. Although the difficulties in find-

Inglese - Artistico

Flavia Zappa

Aesthetic behaviour is the pursuit of beauty. This is easy to say but dif-

ficult to explain, because beauty is such an elusive quality, especially

when viewed biologically. It bears no obvious relationship to any of the

basic survival patterns of the human animal, such as feeding, mating,

sleeping or parental care. And yet it cannot be ignored, because any ob-

jective survey of the way people spend their time must include many

hours of beauty-reaction. There is no other way to describe the response

of men and women who can be found standing silently in front of paint-

ings in an art gallery, or sitting quietly listening to music, or watching

dancing, or viewing sculpture, or gazing at flowers, or wandering

through landscapes, or savouring wines. In each of these cases the hu-

man sense-organs are passing impressions to the brain, the receipt of

which appears to be the only goal involved. The advanced wine-taster

even goes so far as to spit out the wine after tasting it, as if to underline

that it is his need for beauty that is being quenched and not his thirst.

It is true to say that virtually every human creature expresses itself aes-

thetically in some way or other, so the need to experience the beauty-

reaction has a global importance. It is also true to say that there are no

absolutes involved. Nothing is considered to be beautiful by all peo-

ples everywhere. Every revered object of beauty is considered ugly by

someone, somewhere. This fact makes nonsense of a great deal of aes-

thetic theory, and many find it hard to accept. There is so often the feel-

ing that this, or that, particular form of beauty really does have some

intrinsic value, some universal validity that simply must be appreci-

ated by everyone. But the hard truth is that beauty is in the brain of

the beholder and nowhere else. [...]

Turning to the question of invented aesthetics, we move into the area

usually designated as Art. Art can best be defined as man-made

beauty, and it appears in two main forms: the Performing Arts and the

Plastic Arts. The Performing Arts provide an aesthetic event; the

Plastic Arts provide an aesthetic object.

In both cases, the sense of beauty comes primarily from our subtle

comparisons and classifications of set themes, as it did with natural ob-

jects. The difference, of course, is that with natural beauty the theme

is merely isolated from the world around us. We do not invent it, we

only isolate it. In the case of the arts, however, we create it ourselves.

This gives rise to a new problem: how to arrive at a theme, so that its vari-

ations can then be enjoyed. If, for example, we were going to enjoy the

beauty of wild animals or wild flowers, there would be no creativity in-

volved. They existed already, and evolution had done the creative work

for us. But if we now decide to compose music or paint pictures we have

to impose our own evolutionary forces on the works we invent. 

For the painter staring at a blank canvas or the composer sitting in front

of a silent piano, there is total responsibility. He starts from nothing,

or, rather, from everything. His initial choice at the beginning of a

work of art is theoretically completely open. Any shape can be drawn.

Any note can be played. This is the special, additional challenge for

the artist, as opposed to the individual reacting to natural beauty. How

does he meet it?

The answer is that he quickly imposes on himself a highly restricted

form. In a word, he formalizes. Any form will do, just so long as it con-

tains the potential for a complex set of variations. He may copy the form

from nature – a tree, for instance – or he may steal a scale of notes from

bird-song. Or he may painta geometric pattern from some geological

structure as his starting point. Once he has begun to experiment with

forms he has wrested from nature, he can then rapidly shift his themes

further and further away from the natural starting point until the themes

he employs are relatively abstract. With music this process took place

long, long ago. The visual arts are, by contrast, only recently beginning

to explore the more abstract possibilities of painting and sculpture.

Either way, whether staying close to imitated natural objects, or cre-

ating entirely novel abstracted compositions, the artist’s work is

judged, finally, not on any absolute values, but on the basis of how in-

geniously he manages to ring the changes on the themes he has em-

ployed. [...]

(765 words)

From: Desmond Morris, Manwatching. 

A Field Guide to Human Behaviour. 

St. Albans, Triad Panther, 1977, pgs. 278 & 283.

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