30/07/2026
The question of when and why we invented art is one of the central problems of the human sciences, and it opens up even deeper mysteries about what art is in the first place.
In this exceptional and essential Essay, art and philosophy writer J F Martel argues that we didn’t really invent art at all. Instead, it was the other way around: art invented humanity.
‘We are participants in something that exceeds us, and the aesthetic, poetic dimension of great art reconnects us with that excess as a matter of course.’
Drawing on illuminating examples – from cave paintings to Rothko’s Colour Fields – Martel offers a rich exploration into what art reveals to us about ourselves and the world, and why it is essential to our humanity.
Read the Essay in full here: https://aeon.co/essays/humans-did-not-invent-art-it-was-the-other-way-around
Image: ‘Solar System’ (1876), a quilt by Ellen Harding Baker. Courtesy the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives
