A brilliant investigation of why nature is beautiful and how art has influenced science.
“Taking inspiration from Charles Darwin’'s observations that animals have a natural aesthetic sense, philosopher and musician David Rothenberg dives into the mysteries of why we create art, and why animals, humans included, have innate appreciation for beauty.
A searching, accessible, and often ecstatic book.
-- Wall Street Journal
This is the triumphant lesson of Survival of the Beautiful : nature is not entirely red in tooth and claw, it also allows the beautiful right of passage.
-- Peter Forbes, The Guardian
Rothenberg's prose skitters and riffs like a piece of free-form improvisation. He leaps from the extravagant sea-floor flashing of a cuttlefish to the zigzag shapes a migraine sufferer sees before his or her eyes, seeing in their respective patterns some new kind of order in nature. His passionate optimism together with his elegant prose turns Survival of the Beautiful into an exhilarating and thought-provoking trip.
-- Philip Hoare, The Sunday Telegraph
Rothenberg says the beautiful is the root of science, and the goal of art. Its a lovely, if not entirely persuasive, thought.
-- Tim Flannery, Financial Times.
Survival of the Beautiful is a wild ride. At its heart is a wonderful wish: to make us see the stories and the beauty in everything from the warbles of flying cranes to the cries of crows, From the shape-shifting squid to the bower-building bird, to the elephant and to the cryptic moth, which hides beneath his drab wing-tops a flash of crimson red.
-- William Bryant Logan, Toronto Globe and Mail
A bravura investigation..with verve, multidiscipline fluency, and an encompassing vision, Rothenberg accomplishes his mission to change the way we perceive and understand the intertwining of natural evolution and human cultural evolution, beauty and life, art and science.
-- Booklist (starred)
Survival of the Beautiful is not just a book about beauty, but a beautiful book. And also an important one that moves the debate about the biology of aesthetics beyond the cozy fables of evolutionary psychology to probe the deep nature of art and its origins. Both provocative and generous, Rothenberg's work is pervaded with a sense of wonder at and appreciation of the world.
-- Philip Ball, author of Critical Mass and Self-Made Tapestry
David Rothenberg's Survival of the Beautiful pushes open farther and further one of the doors at which the great Darwin paused, uncomprehending but awed. Not since reading Darwin or Thoreau or Quammen's The Song of the Dodo have I encountered so many ideas of such depth, breadth, and insistent yearning. Filled with quiet wit and incredible research and synthesis, nearly every sentence in this book challenges its readers to an intellectual rigor that is not to be confused with anything but pleasure, wonder, awe. An amazing book.
-- Rick Bass, author of Winter: Notes From Montana
David Rothenberg is a brilliantly fun guide on a journey that takes us from bowerbirds to the neuroaesthetics of Semir Zeki. Survival of the Beautiful is just about the best travel literature of the mind out there. With wit by turns gentle and sharp, Rothenberg shows us how art is shaped by animals, and by us.
-- Roald Hoffmann, chemist and writer, winner of the
Nobel Prize in Chemistry
The nerdy mind-set of modernity often suffers allergic outbreaks when confronted with the softer side of cognition. Aesthetic pleasures are then cordoned off from the serious core work of science. But David Rothenberg makes a convincing case that beauty is an intrinsic aspect of reality. He argues, among other things, that without modern art, modern science would have been hobbled by inadequately challenged cognitive habits. Beauty evolved. Perhaps we should take it seriously.
-- Jaron Lanier, author of You Are Not a Gadget
David Rothenberg is a rarity--an actual polymath--and his writing, like the music he plays, reveals an extraordinary mixture of curiosity, intelligence, and playfulness. Tracing complex ideas that link consciousness, human spirit, and creativity within the framework of Darwinian theory leads to the sort of book you would expect from a man who makes music with whales and cicadas. Where does the impetus for the making of art and music reside? How does that fit into an evolutionary scheme? Read this book and enter into Rothenberg's world. You will be rewarded with an exploration of these questions that is both entertaining and revelatory.
-- David Ross, director emeritus, Whitney Museum of American Art
