Entropy trade-offs in artistic design: A case study of Tamil kolam.

ABSTRACT: From an evolutionary perspective, art presents many puzzles. Humans invest substantial effort in generating apparently useless displays that include artworks. These vary greatly from ordinary to intricate. From the perspective of signalling theory, these investments in highly complex artistic designs can reflect information about individuals and their social standing. Using a large corpus of kolam art from South India (N = 3139 kolam from 192 women), we test a number of hypotheses about the ways in which social stratification and individual differences affect the complexity of artistic designs. Consistent with evolutionary signalling theories of constrained optimisation, we find that kolam art tends to occupy a 'sweet spot' at which artistic complexity, as measu

SUBMITTER: Tran NH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10427318 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature