The Seductions of Darwin

“A lucid historiography of the many manifestations, in art, of Darwin’s theory of evolution. Summing Up: Recommended.”

—D. L. Schuld Choice

“For decades, neuroarthistory, neuroaesthetics, and other biological approaches have been assembling a version of art’s history that is alien to the discipline of art history. Outlandish claims have been made about the significance of brain functioning to works of art, provoking defensive criticism about the pertinence of science to art history. Matthew Rampley advances and opens the discussion by taking up the same scientific criteria advocated by the writers he analyzes, including questions of evidence, hypothesis forming, and explanatory value. In that sense this book is not a polemic but an attempt to find ground for conversation. At its heart is a broad and widely informed concern with the sense of culture that art history might bring to bear in the coming decades.”

—James Elkins, editor of The Stone Art Theory Institutes series

“A thoughtful examination of the attempts to reduce aesthetics and art history to neurophysiology or evolutionary science. It provides a comprehensive survey and penetrating analysis of the efforts to impose biological models on the understanding of the arts that have proliferated in recent decades.”

—Branko Mitrović, author of Rage and Denials: Collectivist Philosophy, Politics, and Art Historiography, 1890–1947

Matthew Rampley is Chair of Art History and Head of the School of Languages, Cultures, Art History, and Music at the University of Birmingham and the author of The Vienna School of Art History (Penn State, 2013).