Art and Evolution

The Ninth Grade is most of the way through a seminar in “History Through Art.” The distinction between this study and “art history” is that we take sculptures and paintings to be symbolic of changes in human evolution. By interpreting works of art, we can chart the development of the human species.

Cave paintings, for example, are often surrounded by a black “action line” or outline, the first outlines in human history. Imagine the power of a mind that could say for the first time, “everything inside this line is elk; everything outside it is the rest of creation.” The outline does not exist in nature – there is only fur and grass and air. The line is an abstraction, a product of the artist’s mind. To be able to see the world this way marks a significant step toward human separation from the cosmos. Because to be able to make an outline that acknowledges a distinction in the world, we must tacitly acknowledge our own distinction from the world. The outlines around cave paintings are as resonant as the story of Adam and Eve, cast out of paradise, but taking a step toward the possibility of freedom.

Thousands of years later, Rembrandt’s self-portraits show evidence of the same process. Self-portraits in Rembrandt’s time were innovative, not 200 years old. In the “School of Athens,” Raphael timidly inserts himself in a corner of the painting, peeking out at us. Rembrandt paints himself unapologetically, over and over, appraising the course of his life, from newly-wed swashbuckler to impoverished old man. Not only does he have a self, separate from everyone else, but he has a self worth showing the world, a self balanced in paint between external appearance—every wrinkle and pouch—and inner life.

Two examples make a complex evolution seem too linear. But the more important question regards us, here, today. If human beings have evolved toward freedom (as Gruber says, freedom is the immediate, necessary link between creativity and morality), where do we stand? Ask the Ninth Graders; they’ll be thinking about it.