Biologie umění – Dungel Jan (2020)

At first glance, the concept of art seems more or less clear. However, the problem arises when we have to explain and describe it to someone else. Many of us will likely conclude that art, as an abstract entity or human activity, cannot be exhaustively defined. This "imperfection" of human knowledge complicates the very search for its origins, causes, and meaning not only in the distant past. Life on planet Earth has evolved for billions of years under the influence of natural laws. However, two or three hundred thousand years ago, something unusual happened that this planet had not recorded until then. The human species Homo sapiens emerged, endowed with a previously unknown neurological quality, a completely new type of consciousness characterized by unprecedented intelligence and also a wholly new phenomenon, namely human culture and its supreme product, art. From this moment on, life on Earth began to evolve in entirely new contexts that we are still unable to fully understand today. The vast majority of art narrators begin to recount its story in the Upper Paleolithic, in the darkness of Franco-Cantabrian caves, or under rock overhangs in Australia. And it is no wonder, the paintings on the walls of the Chauvet, Altamira, Lascaux caves...