The Evolution of Allure: Sexual Selection from the Medici Venus to the Incredible Hulk

Hersey, George

ISBN 10: 0262082446 / ISBN 13: 9780262082440

Published by MIT Press, 1996

About this Item

Size: Quarto. Text body is clean, and free from previous owner annotation, underlining and highlighting. Binding is tight, covers and spine fully intact. No foxing in this copy. Dust Jacket is in very good condition, without tears or chips or other damage. Dust Jacket un-clipped. Previous owner's book-plate laid in. All edges clean, neat and free of foxing. Quantity Available: 1. Shipped Weight: Under 1 kilogram. Category: Art & Design; Sociology & Culture. ISBN: 0262082446. ISBN/EAN: 9780262082440. All our pictures shown here are of the actual item, not stock photos. Inventory No: 25618. For further info on this title, click on the "Contact Seller" button within this listing. We will try to reply within 24 hours. Otherwise you can order right now (inclusive of shipping options) from the "Add to Basket" button to the right.

Seller Inventory # 25618

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Evolution of Allure: Sexual Selection from the Medici Venus to the Incredible Hulk
• Publisher: MIT Press
• Publication Date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0262082446
• ISBN 13: 9780262082440
• Binding: Hardcover (Half Cloth)
• Edition: First Edition.
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Art & Design

About this title

Synopsis

The beauty of the human body has found a daring beholder in art historian George Hersey, who for the first time brings modern Darwinian theories of sexual selection (mate competition, attractor manipulation, and the like) into the history of art. The Evolution of Allure shows how Western art has channeled mate choice, exploiting the cosmetics, clothes, muscles, organs, and ornaments that showcase the body. From the Medici Venus to Vitruvius, Leonardo, Durer, and the phone-sex goddesses of D-Cup Superstars, Hersey¹s lively, erotically charged text shows that the formulas set forth by the Greek sculptor Polykleitos have established a Western canon of human gestures and proportions and may have influenced human evolution.

Victorian teachings wrapped this Polykleitan vision in Aryan racial theories and in aspects of early modern physical anthropology. Chapters on Francis Galton, Cesare Lombroso, Max Nordau, W. H. Sheldon and his infamous "posture pictures," and the Nazi theorist Paul Schultze-Naumburg deal with the biological decline that "degenerate" artists like Rembrandt, Rodin, and Whistler would supposedly help bring about.

Hersey concludes with an excursus on the current hyperdevelopment, in both sexes, of breasts and muscles, as exemplified in the likes of body builders, Batman, and the Incredible Hulk.

About the Author

George L. Hersey is Professor of the History of Art at Yale University.