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16 - Ansel Adams

Art for Art’s Sake?

from Part IV - Arts, Entertainment, and Culture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2021

Edward A. Wasserman
Edward A. Wasserman
Affiliation:
University of Iowa
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Summary

Why do men go to such trouble to shave off their facial hair? A man’s beard represents an especially salient secondary sexual characteristic: a physical feature that develops at puberty and distinguishes men from women. In nature, such sexual dimorphism has been believed, since Charles Darwin, to participate in so-called sexual selection – females choosing the fittest males based on such characteristics. Thus, according to Darwin’s account, a lion cropping his mane would be tantamount to committing evolutionary suicide. But, that’s exactly what human males do. Why and when they do so raises interesting questions concerning the origins of shaving equipment and technique as well as the changing tastes of both women and men. Cultural change can be a matter of both function and fancy; such change can even trump the physical results of nature itself.

Keywords

facial hairsecondary sexual characteristicCharles Darwinsexual selectionshaving toolsarcheological evidenceculture
Type
Chapter
Information
As If By Design
How Creative Behaviors Really Evolve
 , pp. 173 - 191
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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References

References

Adams, A. (1983). Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs. New York: Little, Brown and Company.Google Scholar
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Altman, D. (1993, February 7). STUDIO LOGOS; Leo the Lion Flunked Latin. The New York Times. www.nytimes.com/1993/02/07/arts/l-studio-logos-leo-the-lion-flunked-latin-815193.htmlGoogle Scholar
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Hannay, A. H. (1954). The Concept of Art for Art’s Sake. Philosophy, 29, 44–53.Google Scholar
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Senf, R. A. (2020). Making a Photographer: The Early Work of Ansel Adams. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
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Further Material

Dietz, Howard. Songwriters Hall of Fame. https://web.archive.org/web/20160826195840/http://www.songwritershalloffame.org/index.php/exhibits/bio/C62Google Scholar
Oden, L. Ansel Adams | International Photography Hall of Fame. https://iphf.org/inductees/ansel-adams/Google Scholar
The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives (1998). Volume One, 1981–1985. Howard Dietz Biography, 233–234. New York: Charles Scribners.Google Scholar

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  • Ansel Adams
  • Edward A. Wasserman, University of Iowa
  • Book: As If By Design
  • Online publication: 01 July 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108774895.025
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Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Ansel Adams
  • Edward A. Wasserman, University of Iowa
  • Book: As If By Design
  • Online publication: 01 July 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108774895.025
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Ansel Adams
  • Edward A. Wasserman, University of Iowa
  • Book: As If By Design
  • Online publication: 01 July 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108774895.025
Available formats
×