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the dynamics of cultural evolution. His early work on perception was first publicly aired in "Perception and the appraisal of sculpture", in which the important distinction he later draws between matching and simulating non-verbal representational practices is introduced as a difference between what he calls the "object accounts" and the "picture accounts" that we spontaneously give of visually perceived things; notably of three-dimensional works of art. Crucial to his thinking is the idea that non-verbal representation is not a quasi-linguistic form of communication. It relies on the de facto socially efficacious substitutability of one thing for another thing even in cases where relevant properties are not shared. He argues that this perceptually mediated substitutive felicity must have been available to pre-linguistic organisms or language itself could not possibly have evolved.
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items of biological kinds such as a horse, or a cabbage. Just as a horse is the product of appropriately activated genes, he argues that a popular song or a catchphrase is not itself a meme. It is an item of a predictable cultural kind that is generated by exercising memes. Memes are purposefully directed actions that can be exercised in concerted ways, as contrasted with mere behaviours. This is first unambiguously elucidated in his paper "Art
History?".
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had previously dominated. At that time no practical studio courses were offered in any
Australian university. From 1974 he initiated the Experimental Art Foundation in Adelaide. This was partly designed to enrol practising artists, along with academics and theorists, to bridge what he called "the gap
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in Greece. Thereafter he established a practice as a sculptor, exhibiting at the
Woodstock Gallery in London and executing commissions, and was awarded a studio and residence at the Digswell Arts Trust at Welwyn in Hertfordshire, His interest in unresolved theoretical questions about the visual arts
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Brook's elucidation of the concept of art, as what he at first called "experimental modelling of actual and possible worlds", is first comprehensively spelled out in his paper "A New Theory of Art". This rather complex theoretical structure underwent continuous modification in numerous publications
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Although they are wide-ranging, Brook's philosophical interests have centred on two principal regions of speculation: to understand the nature and place of perception and non-verbal representation in the visual arts, and to elucidate the relationship between art, the histories of works of art and
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in biological evolution. However, he differed significantly from
Dawkins and other meme-theorists in his way of understanding and exemplifying the meme. Instead of offering such examples as the popular song or catchphrase he insisted that these things are items of a cultural kind analogous to the
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Brook abandoned art criticism after leaving Sydney, and published extensively thereafter in journals of informed opinion and more popular media as well as in the academic literature. He retired from
Flinders at the end of 1989 and lived in Cyprus from 1990–92, returning temporarily to a part-time
208:, where he read Electrical Engineering. He left before graduating with the intention of becoming an artist and was conscripted in the army toward the end of WWII. He received a Further Education and Training grant in 1949 to study sculpture at the King Edward VII School of Art in the
287:'s 1968 Power Lecture "Avant-garde Attitudes". Australian painters had generally taken their options to be restricted to the choice of international mainstream modernism or the purposeful construction of a distinctively Australian style.
372:(2014), in which an anthology of his papers on perception, representation, art, evolution and history is threaded together along a string of text that is intended to place them in the context of his personal history and experience.
276:" workshops, where his promotion of what he then called "post-object art" (more generally referred to at the time as "conceptual art") was found liberating by many of the younger artists.
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in
Adelaide, where he contentiously changed the departmental name from "Fine Arts" to "Visual Arts". He initiated theoretical studies in the psychology and philosophy of
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The 1969 John Power
Lecture in Contemporary Art. Flight from the object. Sydney: Power Institute of Fine Arts, 1970. 1-22. Reprinted in Ed. Bernard Smith,
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Flight from the Object. The John Power
Lecture on Contemporary Art. Delivered at the University of Sydney on Wednesday 10 September, 1969 by Donald Brook
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169:, philosopher, and theorist, whose research and publications centre on the philosophy of art, non-verbal representation and
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Brook's account of art as the essentially unexpected recognition of the viability of new memes is spelled out in his book
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484:"Perception and the Appraisal of Sculpture." Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 27 (1969): 323-30.
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were his external examiners, he spent a further year on a
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542:"Flight from the Object: Donald Brook and the Emergence of Post-Studio Art in Early 1970s Sydney"
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Electing to remain in
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283:"Flight from the Object" proposed a radical alternative to the ideas that animated
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as the potent factor in cultural evolution, analogous to the function of the
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493:"A new theory of art." British Journal of Aesthetics 20 (1980): 305-321.
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under John Pringle's editorship. From 1968 he became art critic of the
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He was educated on scholarships at Woodhouse Grove School and at the
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in Canberra in 1962. His PhD thesis (1965), examined by Professors
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After graduating (B.A. Fine arts) with first class honours in 1953
409:"Toward a definition of conceptual art". Leonardo 5 (1972): 49-50.
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In 1973 he was appointed to the inaugural chair of Fine Arts at
165:(8 January 1927 – 17 December 2018) was an Australian artist,
502:"Art history?" History and Theory 43 (February 2004), 1-17.
368:(2008). It is succeeded by his semi-autobiographical book
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Britton, Stephanie; Maughan, Janet (22 January 2019).
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account of cultural evolution developed. He embraced
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302:visual culture in a context where European
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540:Green, Charles; Barker, Heather (2009).
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16:For the Australian sport shooter, see
608:Academic staff of Flinders University
603:Australian National University alumni
323:, before settling again in Adelaide.
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623:Alumni of King's College, Newcastle
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618:21st-century Australian sculptors
598:Alumni of the University of Leeds
583:20th-century Australian sculptors
512:The awful truth about what art is
396:Design & Art Australia Online
366:The Awful Truth About What Art Is
331:Brooks died in Adelaide in 2018.
613:English expatriates in Australia
424:, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974.
391:"Donald Brook b. 8 January 1927"
317:University of Western Australia
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440:. Power Institute of Fine Arts
234:Australian National University
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389:Mendelssohn, Joanna (2018).
266:Power Institute of Fine Arts
18:Donald Brook (sport shooter)
421:Concerning Contemporary Art
281:John Power Memorial Lecture
175:Experimental Art Foundation
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526:. Artlink, Adelaide, 2014.
514:. Artlink, Adelaide, 2008.
298:and introduced a study of
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335:Theoretical contributions
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142:Non-verbal Representation
102:20th Century/21st Century
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461:"Donald Brook 1927-2018"
189:Early life and education
127:Philosophy of perception
588:Australian art critics
555:10.38030/emaj.2009.4.2
434:Brook, Donald (1970).
261:Sydney Morning Herald
201:, on 8 January 1927.
131:Philosophy of science
270:University of Sydney
210:University of Durham
593:Philosophers of art
292:Flinders University
248:Professional career
206:University of Leeds
183:Flinders University
173:. He initiated the
229:Cycladic sculpture
221:William Coldstream
193:Brook was born in
171:cultural evolution
149:Cultural Evolution
352:' concept of the
296:visual perception
285:Clement Greenberg
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145:Philosophy of Art
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81:(2018-12-17)
51:Donald Brook
41:Donald Brook
29:Donald Brook
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578:2018 deaths
573:1927 births
304:art history
217:Henry Moore
89:, Australia
567:Categories
524:Get a life
470:23 January
444:23 January
376:References
370:Get A Life
300:Aboriginal
167:art critic
111:Aesthetics
57:1927-01-08
279:His 1969
274:Tin Sheds
199:Yorkshire
307:between
179:Adelaide
87:Adelaide
346:memetic
344:as his
268:in the
225:Archaic
69:England
107:Region
548:(4).
321:Perth
195:Leeds
65:Leeds
472:2023
446:2023
358:gene
354:meme
240:and
227:and
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76:Died
47:Born
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319:in
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