realize how badly we chose and how flimsy our criteria were. How did bowerbirds evolve to use art so cleverly for such important purposes? Most male birds woo females by advertising their colourful bodies, songs, displays, or offerings of food, as dim indicators of good genes. Males of two groups of birds of paradise in New Guinea go one step further by clearing areas on the jungle floor, as bowerbirds do, to enhance their displays and show off their fancy plumage. Males of one of those birds of paradise have gone still further by decorating their cleared areas with objects useful to a nesting female: pieces of snakeskin to line her nest, pieces of chalk or mammal faeces to eat for their minerals, and fruits to eat for their calories. Finally, bowerbirds have learned that decorative objects useless in themselves may nevertheless be useful indicators of good genes, if the objects are ones that were difficult to acquire and keep.
We can easily relate to that concept. Just think of all those advertisements showing a handsome man presenting a diamond ring to a seemingly fertile young woman. You cannot eat a diamond ring, but a woman knows that the gift of such a ring tells far more about the resources that her suitor commands (and might devote to her offspring and herself) than a gift of a box of chocolates would tell. Yes, chocolates provide a few useful calories, but they are quickly gone and any idiot can afford to buy them. In contrast, the man who can afford that inedible diamond ring has money to support the woman and her kids, and also has whatever genes (for intelligence, persistence, energy, etc.) that it took to acquire or hold on to the money.
Comparisons of different bowerbird species and their bowers show that male bowerbirds achieve through bowers what other birds achieve through bright plumage. Bowerbird species differ in the conspicuousness of adult male plumage. For example, males of the five species that build towers or huts sport brilliant yellow-orange crests, whose lengths vary among the species from 4 inches to nothing at all. The shorter the crest, the bigger the bower, and the more numerous and diverse its decorations. It makes sense that a male whose manly ornament is reduced to a runty 2 inches should go to great lengths to compensate in other ways.
Thus, in the course of bowerbird evolution the less resplendent males have lured the female's attention from ornaments that are permanent parts of the male's body to ornaments that the male gathers. Whereas sexual selection in most species has produced differences between males and females in their bodily ornaments (Chapter Six), in bowerbirds it has shifted towards causing males to emphasize collected ornaments separate from their bodies. From this perspective, bowerbirds are rather human. We, too, rarely court (or at least rarely initiate courtship) by displaying the beauties of our unadorned naked bodies. Instead, we swathe ourselves in coloured cloths, spray or daub ourselves with perfumes and paints and powders, and augment our beauty with decorations ranging from jewels to sports cars. The parallel between bowerbirds and humans may be even closer if, as friends of mine who are into sports cars assure me, duller young men tend to decorate themselves with fancier sports cars.
Now let's re-examine, in the light of bowerbirds, those three criteria supposedly separating human art from any animal production. Both bower styles and our art styles are learned rather than inherited, so that there is no difference by the third criterion. As for the second criterion (doing it for aesthetic pleasure), it is unanswerable. We cannot ask bowerbirds whether they get pleasure out of their art, and I suspect that many humans who claim to do so arejust putting on cultural affectations. That leaves only the first criterion: Oscar Wilde's assertion that art is useless, in a narrow biological sense. His statement is definitely untrue of bower art, which serves a sexual function. But it is absurd to pretend any longer that our own art lacks biological functions. Instead, there are several ways in which art helps us to survive and to pass on our genes.
Firstly, art often brings direct sexual benefits to its owner. It is not just a joke that men bent on seduction invite a woman to view their etchings. In real life, dance and music and poetry are common preludes to sex.
Secondly, and much more importantly, art brings indirect benefits to its owner. Art is a quick indicator of status, which—in human as in animal societies—is a key to acquiring food, land, and sexual partners. Yes, bowerbirds get the credit for discovering the principle that ornaments separate from one's body are more flexible status symbols than ornaments that one has to grow, but we still get credit for running away with that principle. Cro-Magnons decorated their bodies with bracelets, pendants, and ochre; New Guinea villagers today decorate theirs with shells, fur, and bird-of-paradise plumes. In addition to these art forms for bodily adornment, both Cro-Magnons and New Guinea villagers produced larger art (carvings and paintings) of world quality. We know that New Guinea art signals superiority and wealth, because birds of paradise are hard to hunt, beautiful statues take talent to make, and both are very expensive to buy. These badges of distinction are essential for marital sex in New Guinea: brides are bought, and part of the price consists of luxury art. Elsewhere as well, art is often viewed as a signal of talent, money, or both. In a world where art is a coin of sex, it is only a small further step for some artists to be able to convert art into food. There are whole societies that support themselves by making art for trade to food-producing groups. For example, the Siassi islanders, who lived on tiny islets with little room for gardens, survived by carving beautiful bowls that other tribes coveted for bride payments and paid for in food.
The same principles hold even more strongly in the modern world. Where we once signalled our status with bird feathers on our bodies and a giant clam shell in our hut, we now do it with diamonds on our bodies and a Picasso on our wall. Where Siassi islanders sold a carved bowl for the equivalent of twenty dollars, Richard Strauss built himself a villa with the proceeds from his opera
By now, you're probably protesting that I have gone completely overboard in ascribing utility to art. What about all of us who just enjoy art, without converting it to status or sex? What about all the artists who remain celibate? Are there not easier ways to seduce a sex partner than to take piano lessons for ten years? Is private satisfaction not a (the?) main reason for our art, just as for Siri and Congo?
Of course. Such expansion of behavioural patterns far beyond their original role is typical of animal species whose foraging efficiency gives them much leisure time, and who have brought their survival problems under control. Bowerbirds and birds of paradise have much leisure time, because they are big and feed on wild fruit trees out of which they can kick smaller birds. We have much leisure time because we use tools to obtain food. Animals with leisure time can channel it into more lavish signals to outdo each other. Those types of behaviour may then come to serve other purposes, such as representing information (a suggested function of Cro-Magnon cave paintings of hunted animals), relieving boredom (a real problem for captive apes and elephants), channelling neurotic energy (a problem for us as well as for them), and just providing pleasure. To maintain that art is useful is not to deny that art provides pleasure. Indeed, if we were not programmed to enjoy art, it could not serve most of its useful functions for us. Perhaps we can now answer the question why art as we know it characterizes us, but no other animal. Since chimps paint in captivity, why do they not do so in the wild? As a solution, I suggest that wild chimps still have their day filled with problems of finding food, surviving, and fending off rival chimp groups. If wild chimps had more leisure time plus the means to manufacture paints, they would be painting. The proof of my theory is that it actually happened: we are still ninety-eight per cent chimps in our genes.
Thus, human art has come far beyond its original functions. But let us not forget that even the greatest art may still serve those primal functions. As evidence, may I quote excerpts from a letter that an English lady named Rebecca Schroter wrote to the famous musician who was her lover:
My Dear
I cannot close my eyes to sleep till I have returned you ten thousand thanks for the inexpressible delight I have received from your ever enchanting compositions and your incomparably charming performance of them. Be assured, my dear, that no one can have such high veneration for your most brilliant talents as I have. Indeed, my dear love, no tongue can express the gratitude I feel for the infinite pleasure your Music has given me. Let me
