Erica Wright

Why Things Look the Way They Do: Explaining Changes in Art and Design over Time, Using Darwinian Evolutionary and Cyclical Theories Erica Wright

This academically rigorous work uses innovative quantitative and qualitative research methods to examine change happening over time to art and designed objects. Using Darwinian Evolutionary theories, including Natural Selection and Sexual Selection, and Socio-economic Cyclical theories, including those of Kondratiev, this work looks at possible causes of change, bringing together seemingly unrelated theories to form a powerful synthesis. Using images of table lamps and clocks from Littlewood's Mail Order Catalogue 1932-80 to track design change over time, comparisons are made with a broad range of socio-historical events, scientific discoveries, and manufacturing innovations happening throughout the same period, showing synchronicity between events and change, and offering explanations for why this might be. Discussing complex ideas and information in straight forward style, the presentation of Cyclical and Darwinian Evolutionary theories is augmented by an insightful overview of the theories of Lamarck, Spencer and Dawkins, which will interest Biologists as well as Art Historians and all those wanting answers to the profoundly simple question of why things look the way they do.