ABSTRACT
The theory of aesthetic evolution presented in this chapter makes two basic predictions about the history of any artistic tradition. The evolutionary theory essentially says that artistic content is due to autocorrelation within an artistic tradition. In order to test the evolutionary theory on other art forms, such as painting or music, it is necessary to find non-linguistic operationalizations of the key variables, arousal potential and primary process content. This chapter describes the theory and then present quantitative evidence from studies of British poetry, music, and painting that is consistent with predictions derived from the theory. A study in progress on the 'sociometry' of the British poets reported on in this chapter shows that they form a remarkably interconnected series. Additional research, as yet unpublished, focused on paintings by French and British painters born between 1590 and 1919. Social, political, judicial, and economic institutions also are subject to powerful independent evolutionary processes the strength of which is currently underestimated.
