Painters Are Telling New Stories

Every night after work, most people prefer to watch movies and fictional television programs instead of watching documentaries, and most people read novels instead of textbooks for enjoyment. We get immense pleasure from stories and seem to be hardwired to seek them out. In their 2001 Substance article “Does Beauty Build Adapted Minds?” pioneers in the field of Evolutionary Psychology, John Tooby and Leda Cosmides, state that: <blockquote> With fiction unleashing our reactions to potential lives and realities, we feel more richly and adaptively about what we have not actually experienced. This allows us not only understand others’ choices and inner lives better, but to feel our way more foresightfully to adaptively better choices ourselves… How would I feel if I acted in a cowardly fashion, and my community knew it (Lord Jim)? How would I feel if my sister died, and I were responsible? </blockquote> We have an evolutionary need for stories, for they help us to imagine all kinds of ‘what if’ scenarios. Furthermore, stories can help us understand our current relationships with others, how we fit into society, or even who we are. Narrative art has a very long history; long before film or even the written word. Some of the earliest cave paintings are painted stories about the hunt. Paintings and sculptures only get more technically proficient and the stories more complicated as we move along through history and art begins to illustrate Greek myths or stories from the Bible. Narrative art encompasses traditional mediums such as painting and sculpture, but also new mediums like film, animation, comic strips, and photography. I’m going to look at narrative painting specifically. <a href="https://medium.com/figure-ground-art-review/painters-are-telling-new-stories-234d06506275">Website</a>