Creativity

Applying

Psychology to study

Creativity (Displayed through visual art, music and literature)

~Hansika Kapoor St. Xavier’s College Mumbai, India © Hansika Kapoor 2009.All rights reserved.

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Self Portrait with Bandaged Ear Vincent Van Gogh, 1889 Oil on Canvas 60.5 x 50 cm Courtauld Institute of Art Gallery, London © Hansika Kapoor 2009.All rights reserved.

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1. Creativity

Index

• Introduction • Defining and Redefining Creativity

2. Relationships • Innovation and Creativity • Intelligence and Creativity • Motivation and Creativity

3. Perspectives

• Psychodynamic • Behaviourist • Humanistic

4. Mental Processes • • • •

Graham Wallas – Four Stage Model J.P. Guilford – Convergent and Divergent Production Arthur Koestler – Bisociation Geneplore Model • Conceptual Blending

5. Proposed Influences • • • • • •

• • • • • •

Environment Personality Traits Divine Intervention Intuition Serendipity Humour Age Personal Experiences Sexual Preferences Substance Abuse Other Creators Medium

6. Mental Illness

• Mood Disorders • Psychosis

7. Creativity Techniques • Brainstorming

• Lateral Thinking • Aleatory • Improvisation

8. Conclusion 9. Bibliography © Hansika Kapoor 2009.All rights reserved.

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Creativity Introduction

In line with Calvin’s view, this Paper aims to determine what lies beneath a creator’s creation – what are the aims, motives, drives, thought processes and influences that lead an individual to manifest creativity in a magnificent form of art, music or literature. Following a systematic and logical flow of thought, the Paper provides early theories of creativity along with modern systems of analyzing the principal concept. The anatomy of creativity has been studied by several eminent psychologists, in a pursuit to provide a more empirical base to it. The three spheres of study – Visual Art, Music and Literature – have been attempted to be explained in the light of creativity with appropriate illustrations wherever applicable. The Paper addresses the sections of the Perspectives to study creativity and studies the Relationship between Innovation, Intelligence, Motivation and creativity. Furthermore, one section is dedicated to describe the Mental Processes and thoughts involved in the creative act. Proposed influences on the mind, and hence on creativity, range from personal experiences to age, with supporting empirical data wherever available. The following section contains an intricate association between Mental Illness and creativity. Finally, modern Creativity Techniques are discussed which are useful to enhance creative thought and output. The purpose of this Paper is, simply, to provide a glimpse into the vast world of creativity, from a psychological viewpoint.

© Hansika Kapoor 2009.All rights reserved.

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Defining and Redefining Creativity Creativity is as subjective as each creative individual. There are numerous proposed/accepted/acknowledged/disputed definitions of this term; however, a universal definition can never be obtained. Creativity is defined the way you want to define it. Creativity is what you determine it to be. How, then, can one state whether an individual is highly creative or not? This is asserted by a consensus among the already-established persons in that respective field. Again, there is no unanimous agreement by professionals in any particular discipline; thus, in that case, majority wins. However, since every person’s definition of creativity is distinctive, each individual’s appreciation of creativity, as well as their own creation, will be different. Creativity is an exceptionally ambiguous term, which cannot and should not be defined identically for all individuals. The concept of creativity is what it is, since it is unique to every person – it is an exclusive experience, theory, notion, and ideology for each person. If one is able to hold on to his/her personal definition, without shutting their minds toward emerging thoughts, the purpose of redefining the term would be achieved. That. Is Creativity.


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Relationship After introducing creativity, it is now necessary to establish the relationship between the principal concept and three other terms. In order to understand the relation, each term will be explained before comparing it to creativity.

Innovation and Creativity The term Innovation means a new way of doing something. It may refer to incremental, radical, and revolutionary changes in thinking, products, processes, or organizations. Innovation is typically understood as the successful introduction of something new and useful. For example, introducing new methods, techniques, practices or altered products and services. Innovation typically involves creativity, but is not identical to it. Innovation involves acting on the creative ideas to make some specific and tangible difference in the domain in which the innovation occurs. Creativity is typically used to refer to the act of producing new ideas, approaches or actions, while innovation is the process of both generating and applying such creative ideas in some specific context. For innovation to occur something more than the generation of a creative idea or insight is required; the insight must be put into action to make a genuine difference. In the context of an organization, therefore, the term innovation is often used to refer to the entire process by which an organization generates new, creative ideas and converts them into novel, useful and viable commercial products, services, and business practices; while the term creativity is reserved to apply specifically to the generation of novel ideas by individuals or groups, as a necessary step within the innovation process. For example, Amabile et al (1996) propose: All innovation begins with creative ideas… We define innovation as the successful implementation of creative ideas within an organization. In this view, creativity by individuals and teams is a starting point for innovation; the first is necessary but not sufficient condition for the second.

Creativity is typically seen as the basis for innovation, and innovation as the successful implementation of creative ideas within an organization. From this point of view, creativity may be displayed by individuals; but innovation occurs in the organizational context only.


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It should be noted, however, that the term innovation is used by many authors rather interchangeably with the term creativity when discussing individual and organizational creative activity. As Davila et al (2006) comment: Often, in common parlance, the words creativity and innovation are used interchangeably. They shouldn't be, because while creativity implies coming up with ideas, it's the “bringing ideas to life”… That makes innovation the distinct undertaking it is.

The distinctions between creativity and innovation discussed above are by no means fixed or universal in the innovation literature. They are however observed by a considerable number of scholars in innovation studies.

Innovative Grass Flip Flops created by Krispy Kreme


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Intelligence and Creativity According to Wechsler (1975), intelligence is often viewed by computer scientists as the ability to process information, by psychologists as the ability to deduce relationships, by educators as the ability to learn and by biologists as the ability to adapt to the environment. Binet and Simon (1916) defined intelligence as the capacity to judge well, to reason well and to comprehend well. Freeman (1955) regarded intelligence as the extent to which [a person] is educable. Simply, intelligence is an umbrella term used to describe a property of the mind that encompasses many related abilities; such as the capacities to reason, to plan, to solve problems, to think abstractly, to comprehend ideas, to use language and to learn. There has been debate in the psychological literature about whether intelligence and creativity are part of the same process (the conjoint hypothesis) or represent distinct mental processes (the disjoint hypothesis). Research covers five possible answers to the question whether intelligence and creativity do have a relationship: a. Creativity is a subset of intelligence (Guilford, 1967) b. Intelligence is a subset of creativity (Sternberg and Lubart, 1995) c. Creativity and intelligence are overlapping sets (Barron, 1963; Renzulli, 1986) d. Creativity and intelligence are coincident sets (Haensly and Reynolds, 1989) e. Creativity and intelligence are disjoint sets (Wallach and Kogan. 1965) All of these relations have been proposed; the most conventional view is probably that of overlapping sets, that intelligence and creativity overlap in some respects, but not in others. However, evidence from attempts to look at correlations between intelligence and creativity from the 1950s onwards, by authors such as F. Barron (1963), Wallach and Kogan (1965), J.P. Guilford (1967), regularly suggested that correlations between these concepts were low enough to justify treating them as distinct concepts. Some researchers believe that creativity is the outcome of the same cognitive processes as intelligence, and is only judged as creativity in terms of its consequences, i.e. when the outcome of cognitive processes happens to produce something novel, a view which D. N. Perkins has termed the “nothing special” hypothesis.


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A very popular model is what has come to be known as the Threshold Hypothesis, proposed by Ellis Paul Torrance, which holds that a high degree of intelligence appears to be a necessary but not sufficient condition for high creativity (Guilford, 1967). This means that, in a general sample, there will be a positive correlation between creativity and intelligence, but this correlation will not be found if only a sample of the most highly intelligent people is assessed. Research into the Threshold Hypothesis, however, has produced mixed results ranging from enthusiastic support to refutation and rejection. Ellis Paul Torrance developed a benchmark method for quantifying creativity and invented, in 1974, the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT). Torrance (1974) developed streamlined scoring. He incorporated five norm-referenced measures and thirteen criterion-referenced measures in his conceptual framework of creativity. The five norm-referenced measures include: fluency, originality, abstractness of titles, elaboration and resistance to premature closure. The criterion-referenced measures include: emotional expressiveness, storytelling articulateness, movement or actions, expressiveness of titles, syntheses if incomplete figures, synthesis if lines, if circles, unusual visualization, extending or breaking boundaries, humour, richness of imagery, colourfulness of imagery and fantasy. According to Arasteh and Arasteh (1976), the most systematic assessment of creativity in elementary school children has been conducted by Torrance and his associates (1960-1964), who have developed and administered the Minnesota Tests of Creative Thinking (MTCT), to several thousands of school children. Although they have used many of Guilford’s concepts in their test construction, the Minnesota group, in contrast to Guilford, has devised tasks which can be scored for several factors, involving both verbal and non-verbal aspects and relying on senses other than vision. An alternative perspective, Renzulli's Three-Ring Hypothesis, sees giftedness as based on both intelligence and creativity. Renzulli (1986) has proposed a ThreeRing Model whereby giftedness is the intersection among above average ability (as measured in the conventional ways), creativity and task commitment. The circles for ability and creativity thus, overlap. Renzulli distinguishes between “schoolhouse” and “creative-productive” giftedness, noting that to be gifted in the one way does not necessarily imply giftedness in the other. Schoolhouse giftedness is conventional giftedness in taking tests and learning lessons, whereas creative-productive giftedness is giftedness in the generation of creative ideas. The people gifted in the two ways are often different. We therefore need to be very careful in using conventional IQ tests to identify the gifted, because we are likely to miss the creatively productive gifted.


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To be creative is to bring something into existence, to give rise to something or to form. It seems easier to assess levels of intelligence, through the use of IQ tests than it is to assess levels of creativity as there is no such equivalent test. IQ tests usually select an activity or skill and then design tests to measure individual performances in the specified activity. A high score will indicate a high level of performance and a low score will indicate a low level of performance. However, it is difficult to measure creativity in such a way because the skills are harder to define as they are usually unique and diverse. Divergent thinking tests of creativity are designed without any substantial validation. They differ from convergent tests of intelligence in that they are open-ended and do not have right or wrong answers.


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Motivation and Creativity Motivation is the process by which activities are started, directed and continued so that physical or psychological needs or wants are met. It is the set of reasons that determines one to engage in a particular behaviour. (Petri, 1996) Essentially, there are two kinds of motivation:

Intrinsic Motivation: It is the type of motivation in which a person performs an action because the act itself is rewarding or gratifying in some internal manner.

Extrinsic Motivation: It is the type of motivation in which a person performs an action because it leads to an outcome that is separate from or external to the individual. Motivation does influence the level of creativity as is displayed through the studies of Prof. Teresa M. Amabile, Harvard Business School. She found that an individual’s creativity was affected by the kind of motivation for which they worked and extrinsic motivation decreased the degree of creativity shown in their work. According to her 1979 study, an intrinsically motivated state is conducive to creativity, whereas an extrinsically motivated state is detrimental. That is, if individuals engage in some activity primarily for its own sake, they will be most likely to produce creative work. If, however, they are led to engage in that activity as a means to achieve some salient extrinsic goal, their creative performance will be undermined. The abstract of “Effects of External Evaluation on Artistic Creativity” by Teresa M. Amabile is as follows: This study examined the conditions under which the imposition of an extrinsic constraint upon performance of an activity can lead to decrements in creativity. Female college students worked on an art activity either with or without the expectation of external evaluation. In addition, subjects were asked to focus on either the creative or the technical aspects of the activity, or they were given no specific focus. Finally, some subjects expecting evaluation were given explicit instructions on how to make their artworks. As predicted, subjects in the evaluation groups produced artworks significantly lower on judged creativity than did subjects in the non-evaluation control groups. The only evaluation group for which this pattern was reversed had received explicit instructions on how to make artworks that would be judged creative. A possible reconciliation of these two disparate results is proposed, and practical implications are discussed. The conceptualization of creativity proposes that intrinsically motivated individuals will be deeply involved in the activity at hand because they will be free of extraneous and irrelevant concerns, concerns about goals extrinsic to the activity itself. They will be playful with ideas and materials because of their freedom to take risks, to explore new cognitive pathways, to engage in behaviours that might not be directly pertinent to attaining a solution. Since they undertook the activity primarily for the enjoyment of engaging in it, they


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will see the activity as more like play than like work. Extrinsically motivated individuals, on the other hand, will be, at some level, concerned with the extrinsic goal to be attained and will thus not be as deeply involved in the activity. In addition, they will feel less free to engage in risk taking and will therefore rely more upon well-worn cognitive pathways. Finally, since they undertook the activity primarily for some reason extraneous to the activity itself, they will see it as more like work than like play. Recently, several theorists have begun to speculate about the effects of extrinsic constraint on immediate performance. In the formulation that is most relevant to the 1979 study of Prof. Amabile, McGraw (1978) has proposed a distinction between two different types of activities in terms of the differential effects that extrinsic constraint might have upon performance of those activities. McGraw describes tasks having algorithmic solutions as those for which the path to the solution is clear and straightforward; performance on these tasks should be enhanced by increases in extrinsic motivation. By contrast, creativity tasks require heuristic solutions, where it is difficult to immediately determine which operations would be relevant to a solution. Thus, creative performance should be adversely affected by increases in extrinsic motivation. Embracing another vocabulary, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has described a highly sought-after affective state called the flow state or the flow experience. In such intrinsically motivating experiences which can occur in any domain of activity, people report themselves as fully engaged with and absorbed by the object of their attention. Individuals who regularly engage in creative activities often report that they seek such states; the prospect of such “periods of flow” can be so intense that individuals will exert considerable practice and effort, and even tolerate physical or psychological pain, in pursuit thereof. However, Eisenberger and Rhoades (2001) have researched on the incremental effects of reward on creativity. Creativity is widely prized in education and business. Being able to approach new academic assignments flexibly and innovatively helps make students active, self-directed learners (Torrance, 1965). To promote creativity, educators and employers often use rewards. For example, students may be given high grades for creative essays or art projects. Employees may be offered financial inducements for suggesting new ways to increase productivity. However, reward’s effectiveness in increasing creativity has been challenged by academic researchers. On the basis of a review of his research literature, Kohn (1993) concluded that “it is simply not possible to bribe people to be creative” and suggested that schools and businesses stop using rewards as inducements for creativity. Hennessey and Amabile (1998) concluded that “the preponderance of the evidence demonstrates that working for reward, under circumstances that are likely to occur naturally in classrooms and workplaces every day can be damaging to both, intrinsic interest and creativity.” Reward’s relationship to creativity has important theoretical as well as practical implications. Interest in activities for their own sake (intrinsic task interest or


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intrinsic motivation) is generally viewed as strongly related to creativity. Researchers have argued that the motivation to obtain external rewards for carrying out a task (external motivation) lessens intrinsic task interest and thereby reduces creativity (Amabile, 1983). Thus, contemporary motivational theory and supportive empirical evidence seem to indicate that reward’s naturally occurring use lessens creativity. The conclusion that reward generally decreases creativity could be premature. Studies reporting decremental effects of reward on creativity used procedures that may convey the dependence of reward on conventional rather than creative performance. Robert Eisenberger and Linda Rhoades reported a series of studies in 2001, with preadolescent students, college students and employees examining two ways reward might increase creativity. First, reward that is specifically contingent on creativity might increase the extrinsic motivation for being creative. Second, reward for high performance, in general, might increase creativity by enhancing self-determination and, therefore, intrinsic task interest. The abstract of “Incremental Effects of Reward on Creativity” by Robert Eisenberger and Linda Rhoades is as follows: The authors examined 2 ways reward might increase creativity. First, reward contingent on creativity might increase extrinsic motivation. Studies 1 and 2 found that repeatedly giving preadolescent students reward for creative performance in 1 task increased their creativity in subsequent tasks. Study 3 reported that reward promised for creativity increased college students' creative task performance. Second, expected reward for high performance might increase creativity by enhancing perceived self-determination and, therefore, intrinsic task interest. Study 4 found that employees’ intrinsic job interest mediated a positive relationship between expected reward for high performance and creative suggestions offered at work. Study 5 found that employees' perceived self-determination mediated a positive relationship between expected reward for high performance and the creativity of anonymous suggestions for helping the organization. Evidence suggests that intrinsic motivation is increased or enhanced when a person not only feels competence, but also a sense of autonomy or the knowledge that his or her actions are self-determined rather than controlled by others. Previous research has found a negative impact on intrinsic motivation when an external reward is given for the performance (Deci et al., 1999); but a more recent paper discusses the results of other studies that find negative effects only for tasks that are not interesting in and of themselves (Cameron et al., 2001). When the task itself is interesting to the person, external rewards may increase intrinsic motivation, at least in the short run. However, further research is required to determine the positive/negative effects of external rewards on intrinsic motivation in the long run. ]


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Perspectives Psychology's numerous philosophical orientations have each attempted a meaningful relationship with creativity with varying degrees of success. The creative process can be observed and described; but its source remains obscure. This section will chronicle some of those attempts in three branches of psychology: psychodynamic, behaviourist, and humanistic psychology. Each of these branches holds a sharply different view about the explanation of creativity, its source and purpose.

Psychodynamic Perspective The psychodynamic approach is based on Freud's theory that creativity arises from the tension between conscious reality and unconscious drives and that the creative product is a way to express unconscious wishes in a publicly accepted manner. To Freud there was great similarity between neurosis and creativity. He felt both originated in conflicts stemming from wish fulfillment and biological drives. Freud contended that all human motivation is aimed at maximizing the gratification of instinctual needs (especially sexual and aggressive needs) and defined sublimation as a diversion of energy from the pursuit of the unattainable or forbidden pleasures into socially approved endeavours. Creativity was the sublimation of sexual drives in the psychodynamic depiction. In Freud’s account, artists seek power and money and, unable to secure these directly, find a haven in creative activities. Freud was impressed by the parallels between the child at play, the adult daydreamer and the creative artist. As he once phrased it: Might we not say that every child at play behaves like a creative writer, in that he creates a world of his own, or, rather, rearranges the things of his world in a new way that pleases him?... The creative writer does the same as the child at play. He creates a world of phantesy which he takes very seriously – that is, which he invests with large amounts of emotion – while separating it sharply from reality.

Other theorists in the Freudian school have built further on the premise that creativity is part of the mental functioning operative in the id; that is, the individual uses it to seek pleasure and avoid pain. Ernst Kris (1952) introduced the concept of preconscious and considered the use of the primary process in creativity as a ‘regression in the service of the ego.’ The link between primary processes (specifically sexuality), and creativity is important. Contrary to psychoanalytic intention, it inadvertently suggests there is an energy (biological creativity), which can be sublimated into higher psychological processes when the primary gratification urges of the id are inhibited. This suggests a discrete phenomenon, creativity that is equally operative as both a biological and psychological function.


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Carl Jung (1953) extends creative functioning by further dividing artistic creativity into two categories: psychological art, and visionary art. It is psychological art which appears to be generated by primary processes. Thus, psychodynamic theory seems best able to explain psychological art and creative acts where the incentive is not the act itself, but rather relief from pain, anxiety, or sexual tension. Freud's theory has been criticized for its speculative nature, dogmatism, and reductionism. Freud himself acknowledged in his Autobiographic Study (1925) that [Psychoanalysis] ... can do nothing towards elucidating the nature of the artistic gift, nor can it explain the means by which the artist works - artistic technique.

However, despite its limitations, Freud's teaching had a great influence on 20th Century art, including literature, painting and cinema. His works on creativity had significant influences on later theoretical approaches to the subject of creativity.


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Behaviourist Perspective J.B. Watson and others developed behaviouristic psychology early this century, in response to psychoanalytic subjectivism. Creativity, thoughts, and emotions are unobservable internal processes; therefore, behaviourism is unable to explore the processes themselves. He believed that the social environment conditioned the personality and its behaviour. Conditioning from the social environment is then stored in the unconscious memory throughout one's life. E.L. Thorndike followed and formulated the Law of Effect which says that reward strengthens responses and failure to reward weakens them. Thorndike, and later B.F. Skinner, continued to study how these consequences - reward or lack of reward - influenced behaviour over time. This conditioning is termed operant conditioning. Operant conditioning and unconscious memories are the primary elements in a behavioural explanation of creativity. In Skinner’s behavioural terms, people engage in creative activity because of a previous history of rewards or positive reinforcements. The creative act, from a behavioural viewpoint, would be a cognitive behaviour pattern which first accessed unconscious material and then synthesized it in the context of an immediate stimulus (problem). Then operant conditioning occurs as the tension subsides because the individual had found a successful solution. The individual may experience additional operant conditioning if other people praise the creative product. However, it seems unreasonable to assume that a behavioural process could access and recombine that much unconscious material so rapidly and with such elegance. Behaviourism also inadequately explains acts such as Einstein's visions of riding on a light ray which led to the theory of relativity, or Kekulé's vision of the Ouroboros which inspired his chemical model of the benzene ring¹. Each of these represents man reaching beyond his current conditioning and knowledge to change his destiny. Behaviourism cannot account for all creative endeavors; its greatest strength is that experiments are precise and collect quantifiable data. The following is Silvano Arieti’s (1972) description of Skinners work: People like B.F. Skinner have characterized man as being molded, conditioned, and programmed by the environment in rigid, almost inescapable ways. Skinner should be appreciated for having shown the extent to which man can be affected in this manner; but...we must stress man's ability to escape his fate. Creativity is one of the major means by which the human being liberates himself from the fetters not only of his conditioned responses, but also of his usual choices.

Notes: 1. August Kekulé (1829-1896) was a German organic chemist. At the twenty-fifth anniversary of his first benzene paper, he spoke of the creation of the theory. He said that he had discovered the ringshape of the benzene molecule after having a daydream of a snake seizing its own tail (the Ouroboros).


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Humanistic Perspective The humanistic approach was a reaction to the deterministic psychoanalytic approach, which explained people’s behaviour, including creativity, by biological drives, and behaviourism, which concentrated on isolated elemental behaviours, explaining them in terms of environmental stimuli. Viewing human nature as a conscious, self-directed, self-actualizing, healthy process distinguishes humanistic psychology from psychoanalytic and behaviouristic psychology. The humanists focused on non-biological motivational factors of creativity, such as self-actualization. They were more concerned with the process of creativity than the creative products or excellence. They valued spontaneity and creativity as a means of self-actualization, which allows an individual to find a ‘real self’ to live an authentic and meaningful life and escape social and cultural control. A pioneer in humanistic psychology, Maslow describes creativity in three categories: primary creativity, secondary creativity, and integrated creativity. The first category describes creativity which proceeds from the primary processes, as does psychodynamic theory; but Maslow includes cognitive and conative processes in addition to the Dionysian drives of the id. Secondary creativity results from the use of higher thought processes; it is Apollonian. It takes over the creative process from primary creativity and adds to it analysis, discipline and hard work. It may also be the main process during the preparation stage but in a less refined form. Maslow's final category is integrated creativity. This category fuses primary and secondary creativity: it is the source of the great works of art, philosophy, and scientific discoveries. This creative integration is also characteristic of the lives of self-actualized, healthy human beings. Integrated creativity in the arts appears to inhabit the same territory Carl Jung described as visionary art. Maslow believed that creativity was self-sufficient and there was no need for an observable creative product because the real object of creativity was the self of the creator. He described creative process as spontaneous, effortless and innocent. As Maslow (1963) quotes, My feeling is that the concept of creativeness and the concept of the healthy, selfactualizing, fully-human person seem to be coming closer and closer together, and may perhaps turn out to be the same thing.

However, this view was criticized as too complacent. As Ochse (1990) commented: There is little doubt that the Humanistic school's loss of the fact that people who create are good workers was largely due to Maslow's own description of the creative process as effortless and easy, like the creativeness of all happy secure children. Only at the end of his life did he acknowledge what he had previously regarded as secondary and unnecessary to inspiration - plain hard work.


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Mental Processes The study of the mental representations and processes underlying creative thought belongs to the domains of psychology and cognitive science. A few of the prominent researches done and theories made in this field are described in this section.

Graham Wallas – Four Stage Model Graham Wallas, in his work The Art of Thought, published in 1926, presented one of the first models of the creative process. Though derived from his own introspection and scattered observations rather than systematic empirical observations, Wallas’ phases have been widely accepted by theorists and investigators of creativity. In the Wallas stage model, creative insights and illuminations may be explained by a process consisting of four stages:

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Preparation (preparatory work on a problem that focuses the individual's

mind on the problem and explores the problem's dimensions), 2. Incubation (where the problem is internalized into the unconscious mind and nothing appears externally to be happening), 3. Illumination (where the creative idea bursts forth from its preconscious processing into conscious awareness); and 4. Verification (where the idea is consciously verified, elaborated, and then applied). The following is an extract from Stages of Control from The Art of Thought by Graham Wallas, 1926: We can… take a single achievement of thought – the making of a new generalization or invention or the poetical expression of a new idea – and ask how it was brought about. We can then roughly dissect out a continuous process, with a beginning and a middle and an end of its own. Helmholtz, for instance, the great German physicist, speaking in 1891 at a banquet on his seventieth birthday, described the way in which his most important new thoughts had come to him. He said that after previous investigation of the problem “in all directions… happy ideas come unexpectedly, without effort, like an inspiration. So far as I am concerned, they have never come to me when my mind was fatigued, or when I was at my working table...” Helmholtz here gives us three stages in the formation of a new thought. The first in time I shall call Preparation, the stage during which the problem was “investigated… in all directions”; the second is the stage during which he was not consciously thinking about the problem, which I shall call Incubation; the third consisting of the appearance of the “happy idea” together with all the psychological events which immediately preceded and accompanied that appearance, I shall call Illumination.


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And I shall add a fourth stage, of Verification, which Helmholtz doest not here mention. Henri Poincaré, the French mathematician and physicist, in the description of the Verification stage says, “It never happens that unconscious work supplies ready-made the result of a lengthy calculation in which we have only to apply fixed rules… All that we can hope from these inspirations, which are the fruit of unconscious work, is to obtain points of departure for such calculations. As for the calculations themselves, they must be made in a second period of conscious work which follows the inspiration, and in which the results of the inspiration are verified and consequences deduced.”

There has been some empirical research looking at whether, as the concept of Incubation in Wallas' model implies, a period of interruption or rest from a problem may aid creative problem-solving. Ward (2003) lists various hypotheses that have been advanced to explain why incubation may aid creative problem-solving, and notes how some empirical evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that incubation aids creative problem-solving, in that it enables forgetting of misleading clues. Absence of incubation may lead the problem solver to become fixated on inappropriate strategies of solving the problem (Smith, 1981). This work disputes the earlier hypothesis that creative solutions to problems arise mysteriously from the unconscious mind while the conscious mind is occupied on other tasks (Anderson, 2000).


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J.P. Guilford – Convergent and Divergent Production J.P. Guilford (1967) performed important work in the field of creativity, drawing a distinction between convergent and divergent production. Convergent thinking involves aiming for a single, correct solution to a problem, whereas divergent thinking involves creative generation of multiple answers to a set problem. Divergent thinking is sometimes used as a synonym for creativity in psychology literature. Convergent and divergent productions are the two types of human response to a set problem, identified by Guilford. He observed that most individuals display a preference for either convergent or divergent thinking.

Convergent thinking is oriented towards deriving the single best (or correct) answer to a clearly defined question. It emphasizes speed, accuracy, logic, and the like, and focuses on accumulating information, recognizing the familiar, reapplying set techniques, and preserving the already known. It is based on familiarity with what is already known (i.e., knowledge), and is most effective in situations where a ready-made answer exists and needs simply to be recalled from stored information, or worked out from what is already known by applying conventional and logical search and recognition.

Divergent thinking is seen as a major component of creativity and is associated with four main characteristics: a. Fluency (the ability to rapidly produce a large number of ideas or solutions to a problem); b. Flexibility (the capacity to consider a variety of approaches to a problem simultaneously); c. Originality (the tendency to produce ideas different from those of most other people); and d. Elaboration (the ability to think through the details of an idea and carry it out). Guilford almost single-handedly created psychometric interest in the study of creativity. He also pointed out that creativity cannot be measured by conventional tests of intelligence since they often require convergent operations to produce a single, correct answer to multiple-choice questions.


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Arthur Koestler – Bisociation “Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.” - Arthur Koestler Arthur Koestler proposes that creations result from the association of two self-consistent, but habitually incompatible frames of reference in the physical, psychological or social world. His book The Act of Creation (1964) is a massive study rich in examples and careful speculation based upon psychological and biological theories as well as upon his own personal experience with literary creation as a novelist and biographer. Koestler uses a wide variety of examples and he incorporates ideas from different fields. Uniting pairs of opposites is a theoretical premise of his creativity theory. Bisociation, a term Koestler coined, means “any mental occurrence simultaneously associated with two habitually incomparable contexts”. It means to join unrelated, often conflicting, information in a new way. Koestler says it is being double minded or able to think on more than one plane of thought simultaneously. He believed that creativity arises as a result of the intersection of two quite different frames of reference. Bisociation refers to the mixture of concepts from two contexts or categories of objects that are normally considered separate by the literal processes of the mind. Koestler introduced the term bisociation to distinguish the type of metaphoric thinking that leads to the acts of great creativity from familiar associative thinking. He considered this to be the essential mechanism of the creative process. In The Act of Creation, Arthur Koestler (1964) lists three types of creative individuals- the Artist, the Sage and the Jester. The following is a quote from the book: I have coined the term ‘bisociation’ in order to make a distinction between the routine skills of thinking on a single ‘plane’, as it were, and the creative act, which, as I shall try to show, always operates on more than one plane. The former may be called singleminded, the latter a double-minded transitory state of unstable equilibrium where the balance of both emotion and thought is disturbed…

Examples of bisociation may be merging seriousness and humour in the form of satire or bringing together an up-tempo beat with grave lyrics (for example, as is done in the song, Last Kiss by Pearl Jam).


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Geneplore Model An early general framework for the creative cognition approach was The Geneplore Model of creative functioning (Finke, Ward, Smith 1992), which was intended as a broadly descriptive, heuristic model rather than an explanatory theory of creativity. The central proposal was that many creative activities can be described in terms of an initial generation of candidate ideas or solutions followed by extensive exploration of those ideas. The initial ideas are described as preinventive, in the sense that they are not complete plans for some new product, tested solutions to vexing problems, or accurate answers to difficult puzzles. Rather, they may be an untested proposal or even a mere germ of an idea, but they hold some promise of yielding outcomes bearing the crucial birthmarks of creativity, originality and appropriateness. The Geneplore Model assumes that, in most cases, one would alternate between generative and exploratory processes, refining the structures according to the demands or constraints of the particular task. The Geneplore Model of creative cognition distinguishes between generative and exploratory processes in developing creative ideas. Geneplore is a portmanteau of ‘generate’ and ‘explore’, being the two stages of this model.

Generative processes such as retrieval of existing structure form memory, the formation of simple associations among those structures or combinations of them, the mental synthesis of new structures, the mental transformations of existing structures into new forms, analogical transfer of information from one domain to another and categorical reduction, in which existing structures are conceptually reduced to more primitive constituents give rise to preinventive structures. These may consist of mental images, verbal communications, category exemplars or mental models. The structures are then explored to assess their creative possibilities.

Exploratory processes include the search for novel or desired attributes in mental structures, the search for metaphorical implications of the structures, the evaluation of structures from different perspectives or within different contexts, the interpretation of structures as representing possible solutions to problems and the search for various practical or conceptual limitations that are suggested by the structures. Creative thinking can thus, be characterized in terms of how these various processes are employed or combined. For example, a writer might generate the beginnings of a new plot line by mentally combining familiar and exotic concepts, and then explore the ramifications of their combination in fleshing out details of the story. Similarly, an inventor might mentally synthesize the parts of different objects, and then explore how the structure might be interpreted as representing a new invention or concept. Once these exploratory processes are completed, the preinventive structure can be refined or regenerated, depending on what one discovers during the


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exploratory phase. The cycle can then be repeated until the structure has been developed to a desired extent. The Geneplore Model also assumes that constraints on the final product can be imposed on either the generative or exploratory phase at any time. This allows the model to be applied to many different types of situations and restrictions. For example, constraints on resources might limit the types of structures that could be generated, whereas constraints on practicality might limit the types of interpretations that are allowable. The ideal time for imposing these constraints is an empirical question that can be addressed in creative cognition research. The relationship among generative processes, exploratory processes, preinventive structures and constraints is shown in the figure below. As depicted, the model assumes that the two distinct processing stages, generation and exploration, are used in most instances of creative cognition. In the generative stage, processes give rise to preinventive structures, which are then used or interpreted in the explanatory stage. After this stage is completed, the preinventive structures can be refined or regenerated in the light of the discoveries and insights that may have occurred. The process can then be repeated, until the preinventive structures result in a final creative idea or product.

Figure: The basic structure of the Geneplore model. Preinventive structures are constructed during an initial, generative phase, and are interpreted during an exploratory phase. The resulting creative insights can then be focused on specific issues or problems, or expanded conceptually, by modifying the preinventive structures and repeating the cycle. Constraints on the final product can be imposed at any time during the generative or exploratory phase. From Finke, Ward and Smith (1992).


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Conceptual Blending Conceptual Blending (Conceptual Integration) is a general theory of cognition. According to this theory, elements and vital relations from diverse scenarios are blended in a subconscious process known as Conceptual Blending, which is assumed to be ubiquitous to everyday thought and language. Insights obtained from these blends constitute the products of creative thinking; though conceptual blending theory is not itself a theory of creativity, in as much as it does not illuminate the issue of where the inputs to a blend actually come from. Blending theory does provide a rich terminology for describing the creative products of others, but has little to say on the inspiration that serves as the starting point for each blend. The theory of Conceptual Blending was developed by Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner. The development of this theory began in 1993. Mark Turner and Gilles Fauconnier cite Arthur Koestler’s 1964 book The Act of Creation as an early forerunner of conceptual blending: Koestler had identified a common pattern in creative achievements in the arts, sciences and humour (The Artist, the Sage and the Jester) that he had termed “bisociation” - a notion he described with many striking examples, but did not formalize in algorithmic terms.

Conceptual Blending theory is also not formalized at the level of algorithmic detail, but its various optimality principles provide some guidance for those building computational models. However, no single cognitive theory has yet been able to cover any significant fraction of the phenomena of human cognition, but some claim that, as of late 2005, conceptual blending was rising in prominence among such theories. In his book The Literary Mind, conceptual blending theorist Mark Turner states that, “Conceptual blending is a fundamental instrument of the every day mind, used in our basic construal of all our realities, from the social to the scientific.” An appropriate example of conceptual blending is fusion music which combines two or more genres of music and varied instruments, producing a unique blend of sounds.


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Proposed Influences Creativity has been attributed variously to divine intervention, several cognitive processes, an individual’s environment and his/her own experiences, serendipity and even the medium through which ideas and thoughts are expressed. Creativity has been associated with humour, intuition and substance abuse. This section will determine the influence each of these factors may or may not have on creativity displayed by an individual.

Environment Creativity does not occur in a vacuum. While examining a creative person, creative product or creative process, it is essential to take into account the environmental milieu as well. One cannot de-contextualize creativity; the environment is always present and can have a profound effect on creative expression. The environment may be involved in stimulating and supporting creativity as well as defining and evaluating it. The creative entity may be influenced by his/her socio-cultural, physical or even political environment and this impact may be visible in the creative product as well.

Socio-cultural Environment The original research on creativity tended to adopt an excessively individualistic perspective. Creativity was viewed as a process that took place in the mind of a single individual who possessed the appropriate personal characteristics and developmental experiences. Beginning in the late 1970s, however, more psychologists began to recognize that creativity takes place in a social context. Sociologists and anthropologists have long argued that creativity is mostly if not entirely a socio-cultural phenomenon; but only in the past couple of decades have psychologists begun to scrutinize the extent to which creative achievements depend on the impersonal and pervasive zeitgeist (Simonton, 1984). It has become increasingly clear that certain political environments affect the degree of creativity manifested by the corresponding population. Some of these political influences operate directly on the adult creator, such as when warfare depresses the output of creative ideas (Simonton, 1984). Other political effects function during the developmental stages of an individual's life, either encouraging or discouraging the acquisition of creative potential. In fact, nationalistic revolts against the oppressive rule of empire states tend to have a positive consequence for the amount of creativity in the following generations. The rationale for the above consequence may be that nationalistic rebellion encourages cultural heterogeneity rather than homogeneity (Simonton, 1994). Rather than everyone having to speak the same language, read the same books, follow the same laws, and so on, individuals are left with more options. This


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suggests that cultural diversity may facilitate creativity. By enriching the cultural environment, the ground may be laid for new creative syntheses. Norms Creative accomplishments can only be understood and appreciated with reference to current values and norms. Norms can influence creativity in several ways: by increasing the number of creations, by giving direction to creative behaviour (e.g., valuing cubism over realism in paintings), and by determining the means by which creativity is expressed (e.g., self-expressing in images or in words). However, the relationship between norms and creativity is not entirely straightforward. This is because creativity is also achieved by deviating from normative criteria. For example, surrealism came into being because it was a deviation from contemporary cultural/art movements. By contrast, products also need to remain within normative boundaries in order to be creative. For instance, the creativity of Renaissance artists was largely a function of their ability to live up to ancient Roman rules of aesthetics. The following are a few examples of the effect of socio-cultural factors in creating creative movements. Jazz is an American musical art form which originated in the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in Southern U.S. By 1808, the Atlantic slave trade had brought almost half a million Africans to the United States. The slaves largely came from West Africa and brought strong tribal musical traditions with them. In the early 19th century an increasing number of black musicians learned to play European instruments, particularly the violin. The emancipation of slaves led to new opportunities for education of freed African-Americans, but strict segregation meant limited employment opportunities. Black musicians provided “low-class” entertainment at dances, minstrel shows [entertainment consisting of comic skits, variety acts, dancing and music], and many more marching bands formed. Black pianists played in bars, clubs and brothels, and thus, the origins of Jazz developed. Due to the blend of African, European and American cultural and musical aspects, Africans were integrated into American society, leading to the emergence of Jazz. Romanticism is a complex artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Western Europe, and gained strength during the Industrial Revolution. It was a revolt against aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment, in which reason was advocated as the primary source and legitimacy for authority. The “Big Six” of English romantic literature pertains to the six figures who are historically supposed to have formed the core of the Romantic movement of late 18th and early 19th century England. They are William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats. This movement influenced the creation of several other literary periods as well as numerous acclaimed literary works. Cubism is a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque¹ that inspired related movements in music and literature. In cubist artworks, objects are broken up, analyzed, and re-


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assembled in an abstracted form—instead of depicting objects from one viewpoint, the artist depicts the subject from a multitude of viewpoints to represent the subject in a greater context. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the European cultural elite were discovering African, and Native American art for the first time. Artists such as Paul Gauguin² and Pablo Picasso were intrigued and inspired by the stark power and simplicity of styles of those foreign cultures. These cultures, when merged with the artistic styles of the above mentioned painters, created an art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture.

Woman with a Guitar Georges Braque, 1913 Oil and charcoal on canvas 130 x 73 cm Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou The analysis of creativity in diverse cultures shows that creativity is contextdependent. The Western definition of creativity as a product-oriented, originality-based phenomenon can be compared with an Eastern view of creativity as a phenomenon of expressing an inner truth in a new way. Sociocultural factors provide a set of facilitating and inhibiting conditions for creativity that influence the general level of creative activity.

Notes: 1. Georges Braque (1882 – 1963) was a major 20th century French painter and sculptor. 2. Paul Gauguin (1848 – 1903) was a leading Post-Impressionist French painter.


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Physical Environment Creativity is also attributed to the physical environment within which one works. Especially in the case of writers and artists, who draw substantial inspiration form their surroundings, the region in which they create, affects their creativity. Studies have not yet been established in this area of potential influence to creativity, since one’s physical environment is considered to be a subset of one’s socio-cultural environment. However, there is a difference that arises, not only due to diverse cultural traditions; but also due to diverse geographical characteristics. Nature has been the primary subject of several schools of art and literature. The Lake Poets all lived in the Lake District of England at the turn of the nineteenth century. The Lake District is famous for its lakes and its mountains and especially its associations with English Literature. Thomas Gray¹ was the first to bring this region to attention; but it was William Wordsworth whose poems were the most famous and influential. Wordsworth’s poem I wandered lonely as a cloud, better known as Daffodils, inspired by the sight of daffodils on the shores of Ullswater,² remains one of the most famous in the English language. Out of his long life of eighty years, Wordsworth spent sixty amid the nature of the Lake District, producing some of his best known works. Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey were also main figures associated with the Lake School. They are considered to be part of the Romantic Movement. The Lake Poets drew their creative thoughts from their surrounding natural environment, which was depicted through the medium of poems and other literature. The following is a sonnet by Wordsworth, in which he criticizes the modern world for being absorbed by materialism and distancing itself form nature.

The World Is Too Much With Us -

William Wordsworth

The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not. - Great God! I'd rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

Notes: 1. Thomas Gray (1716 – 1771), was an English poet, classical scholar and professor at Cambridge University. 2. Ullswater is the second largest lake in the Lake District.


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However, another dimension would assume an overlap between an individual’s socio-cultural and physical environment. Creativity may be influenced by both in certain works. For example, T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) was a poet, dramatist and literary critic. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature 1948. Eliot was born in the United States, moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 (aged 25), and became a British subject in 1927 at the age of 39. Of his nationality and its role in his work, Eliot said: “[My poetry] wouldn’t be what it is if I’d been born in England, and it wouldn’t be what it is if I’d stayed in America. It’s a combination of things. But in its sources, in its emotional springs, it comes from America.” In the sphere of visual arts, nature is a major component of landscape painting as well as painting en plein air. Impressionism was a nineteenth century art movement that was characterized by visible brush strokes, emphasis on light in its changing qualities, ordinary subject matter and unusual visual angles. Impressionists like Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Claude Monet took the act of painting outside the studio and into the world. Previously, still life, portraits as well as landscapes were painted indoors. However, the Impressionists found that they could capture the momentary and transient effects of sunlight by painting en plein air. Painting realistic scenes of modern life, they emphasized vivid overall effects rather than details.

Paris Street, Rainy Day Gustave Caillebotte, 1876-1877 Oil on canvas 212.2 x 276 cm Art Institute of Chicago © Hansika Kapoor 2009.All rights reserved.

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Claude Monet (1840-1926) was a founder of French Impressionism, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement’s philosophy of expressing one’s perceptions before nature. The term Impressionism is derived form the title of his painting, Impression, sunrise (Impression, soleil levant). Monet produced numerous landscapes in his lifetime; and more often than not, was inspired by that natural beauty that surrounded him. Water Lilies is a series of approximately 250 paintings depicting Monet’s flower garden at Giverny¹ and were the main focus of Monet’s artistic production during the last thirty years of his life.

The Cliffs at Étretat ² Claude Monet, 1885 Oil on canvas 65 x 81.1 cm Clark Art Institute, Massachusetts

Notes: 1. Giverny is a commune in Northern France, best known as the location of Monet’s garden and home. 2. Étretat is a commune in Northern France, best known for its cliffs, including a famous natural arch.


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Personality Traits Creativity has been attributed to various personality factors by several psychologists since the 1930s. However, there is no common consensus regarding the personality traits that comprise a creative person. Creativity is a highly subjective phenomenon, and the personality of every creative individual is derived from a unique mould of thought and idea. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has described this individuality displayed by creative persons as under: I have devoted 30 years of research to how creative people live and work, to make more understandable the mysterious process by which they come up with new ideas and new things. Creative individuals are remarkable for their ability to adapt to almost any situation and to make do with whatever is at hand to reach their goals. If I had to express in one word what makes their personalities different from others, it is complexity. They show tendencies of thought and action that in most people are segregated. They contain contradictory extremes; instead of being an individual, each of them is a multitude.

Csikszentmihalyi (1996) lists ten pairs of antithetical traits often present in creative people that are integrated with each other in a dialectical tension. 1. Creative people have a great deal of physical energy, but they're also

often quiet and at rest. 2. Creative people tend to be smart yet naïve at the same time. 3. Creative people combine playfulness and discipline, or responsibility and

irresponsibility. 4. Creative people alternate between imagination and fantasy, and a rooted

sense of reality. 5. Creative people tend to be both extroverted and introverted. 6. Creative people are humble and proud at the same time. 7. Creative people, to an extent, escape rigid gender role stereotyping. 8. Creative people are both rebellious and conservative. 9. Most creative people are very passionate about their work, yet they can be extremely objective about it as well. 10. Creative people's openness and sensitivity often exposes them to suffering and pain, yet also to a great deal of enjoyment. He concludes that, “The novelty that survives is usually the work of someone who can operate at both ends of these polarities - and that is the kind of person we call creative.” Gregory J. Feist (1999) studied the influence of personality on artistic and scientific creativity. The non-social traits consistent in Psychological Literature are: • Openness to experience • Affective illness • Fantasy – oriented • Emotional sensitivity • Imagination • Flexibility of thought • Impulsivity • Drive • Lack of conscientiousness • Ambition • Anxiety • Achievement


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The social traits that may influence creative output are: • Dominance • Arrogance • Hostility • Self-confidence • Autonomy • Introversion • Independence • Non-conformity Regarding the above personality factors, Feist has said: Some of these conclusions may appear to be deceptively simple, but they go far in demonstrating that personality as a construct and its study as a discipline offer a unique and important perspective on creativity and the creative process. However, there is still a long way to go before a consensus can be reached on some of the more difficult and pressing problems of the creative personality.

An alternative list of personal traits relating to creativity includes active curiosity, broad interests, tolerance of ambiguity, self-confidence within one's field of creative activity, a powerful sense of agency and self-efficacy, independence of thought and judgment, imaginative and intellectual power, a capacity for hard and self-discipline work, a self-narrative that portrays the self as a creative productive person, and a philosophical commitment to and belief in the importance of one's chosen activity (Harrington, 1999). Although there remains no unanimity concerning the personality traits essential for a creative person, psychologists do believe that almost all highly creative individuals share certain common personality traits. Again, this is a blanket statement, and may not be applicable in every situation or every field. Also, it is not clear whether people who already exhibit these personality characteristics become creative, or whether, as a result of acknowledged creativity, people come to exhibit such positively/negatively tinged traits. Psychologists have determined other numerous criteria of personality traits that may enhance creativity in individuals. It must be mentioned here that all traits do not apply to all creative individuals at once. There may be a progression of traits that a creator goes through while manifesting his/her creativity. Similarly, there may be a repetition of traits that the creative individual draws motivation from. The personality factors that lead to creativity are constantly subject to change; while in other cases, they may remain stagnant for long periods of time. Personality factors are just as unique to an individual as is his/her creativity. Every creative person cannot and should not have the same traits, since their manifestation are fully expressed in the creation of new thoughts and ideas. Personality factors may be a mild influence to some persons; while for others, personality characteristics may inspire and drive them to create.


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Divine Intervention Divine Intervention is another term for a miracle, which is an event that appears unexplainable by the laws of nature and so is held to be supernatural in origin or an act of God. The study of creativity has always been tinged with associations to mystical beliefs. Perhaps the earliest accounts of creativity were based on divine intervention. The creative person was seen as an empty vessel that a divine being would fill with inspiration. The individual would then pour out the inspired ideas, forming an otherworldly product. In antiquity, creativity was a divine attribute, a capacity narrated in the creation myths that are almost universal in human cultures. Even when creativity was attributed to individual human beings, the ultimate source often remained spiritual. This connection is illustrated in the ancient Greek belief in the Muses. According to the myth, Zeus, the reigning god in the pantheon, fathered nine daughters with Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory. Each of these nine daughters presided over a different domain of human creativity. In particular, these Muses were responsible for epic poetry, lyric poetry, sacred poetry and hymns, tragedy, comedy, music, dance, astronomy, and history. Each muse was thought to provide a guiding spirit or source of inspiration for the mortal creator. This usage underlies several common expressions, such as to say that one has lost one's Muse when one has run out of creative ideas. In this vein, Plato argued that a poet is able to create only that which the Muse dictates, and even today, people sometimes refer to their own Muse as a source of inspiration. Given this view, human creativity remained subordinate to divine creativity. The religious or spiritual roots of creativity are also evident in the concept of genius, an idea that would later become intimately identified with creativity. According to Roman mythology, each individual was born with a guardian spirit who watched out for the person's distinctive fate and individuality. With time, the term was taken to indicate the person's special talents or aptitudes. Although in the beginning everybody could be said to have a genius, at least in the sense of possessing a unique potential, the term eventually began to be confined to those whose gifts set them well apart from the average, such as the creative genius. Outstanding creativity then became the gift of the gods or spirits, not a human act. Often, mystical sources have been suggested in creators’ introspective reports. For example, Rudyard Kipling referred to the Daemon that lives in the writer’s pen: “My Daemon was with me in the Jungle Books, Kim and both Puck books and good care I took to walk delicately, lest he should withdraw… When your Daemon is in charge, do not think consciously. Drift, wait and obey.”


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An example of a bargain with the divine is illustrated through the life of Pablo Picasso, whose childhood may have constituted the most important contributor to his ultimate artistic accomplishment. When he was fourteen, his younger sister, Conchita, died after contracting diphtheria. Young Picasso was not only deeply distraught by this experience but may have also held himself accountable for this death and wanted somehow to atone for it. It has been speculated that, at the time, Picasso had promised God that he would stop painting in gratitude if Conchita’s life were saved; and since this bargain had not been accepted, Picasso felt free to do whatever he wanted in his professional and personal lives and concomitantly guilty at this hubristic seizure of power. This experience was compounded by his almost magical conviction that his little sister's death had released him to be a painter and follow the call of the powers he had been given, whatever the consequences. In 1988, one of A.S. Dileep Kumar’s sisters was seriously ill and numerous attempts to cure her failed. Her condition progressively worsened. The family had given up all hope when they came in contact with a Muslim Pir - Sheik Abdul Qadir Jeelani or Pir Qadri as he was popularly known. With his prayers and blessings, Dileep's sister made a miraculous recovery. Rattled by the bad experience and apparently influenced by the teachings of the Pir, the entire family converted to another faith. Thus A.S. Dileep Kumar became A.R. Rahman. The above examples may not provide the essence of divine intervention as was stated in Greek and Roman mythology; but they do indicate the stupendous power of belief and faith. Had Conchita survived, the world would have lost Pablo Picasso’s Guernica. Also, if Rahman’s sister had not been cured, he may have continued following his original faith and his outlook toward life and society may have remained the same. It is possible that his creation of music may have been different due to this. Divine intervention and an intense spirituality are very visible in his music, which transcends religion and possesses an unmistakable sense of unity. He even refuses to compose for movies promoting communal disunity. The mystical approaches to the study of creativity have probably made it harder for scientific psychologists to be heard. Many people seem to believe that creativity is something that just does not lend itself to scientific study, because it is a spiritual and internal process.


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Intuition Intuition is the ability to sense or know something immediately without reasoning. It is a kind of knowledge revealed without preparation, an illumination of sorts. This ability of intuition is closely linked to two stages of Wallas’ Four-Stage Model discussed earlier, namely:

Stage 2: Incubation, where the problem is internalized into the unconscious mind and nothing appears externally to be happening and,

Stage 3: Illumination, where the creative idea bursts forth from its preconscious processing into conscious awareness. If, after the preparatory stage, the search for a solution fails to arrive immediately, the mind diverts to other activities. Yet, at a subliminal level, it is constantly working on the problem during the incubation stage. Finally, when the various associations converge into a solution, the creative idea thrusts itself into consciousness as an illumination. There may not be several cited examples of intuition assisting creative persons in their discoveries or output; however, the phenomenon has been noticed and acknowledged by several. The following quotations are a mild evidence of the same: “If the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Intuition is the supra-logic that cuts out all the routine processes of thought and leaps straight from the problem to the answer.”

- Robert Graves

“There is no instinct like that of the heart.”

- Lord Byron

Serendipity © Hansika Kapoor 2009.All rights reserved.

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Serendipity is the effect by which one accidentally discovers something fortunate, especially while looking for something else entirely. The phenomenon of serendipity is one type of illumination event that occupies a special place in the Darwinian theory of creativity (Simonton, 1999). The word is derived form Serendip, the old Persian name for Sri Lanka and was coined by Horace Walpole in a letter he wrote to his friend. The letter read: It was once when I read a silly fairytale, called The Three Princes of Serendip: as their highnesses travelled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of: for instance, one of them discovered that a camel blind of the right eye had travelled the same road lately, because the grass was eaten only on the left side, where it was worse than on the right – now do you understand serendipity?

However, creativity is not solely based on this chance of accidental discovery. As Louis Pastor warned, “In the field of observation, chance only favours the prepared mind.” For example, Alexander Fleming was not the first bacteriologist to have a culture spoiled by an invasion of penicillin mold. Likewise, Archimedes was not the first to watch the bathtub overflow or Newton the falling of an apple. What made these observations discoveries was the special significance that these minds assigned to sometimes everyday occurrences. As Ernst Mach said in his essay On the Part Played by Accident in Invention and Discovery, the fortuitous happenings that excited so many contributions “were seen numbers of times before they were noticed.” (Simonton, 1994) Creative geniuses do not always wait for the gifts of chance; instead they may actively seek the accidental discovery. Although we often think of serendipity as a phenomenon that occurs in the sciences, the same active quest for novelty is found in the arts as well. For example, Henry James (1843-1916), the fiction writer, revealed in his preface to The Spoils of Poynton (1897) how his story grew from “mere floating particles in the stream of talk” during a casual dinner conversation. Max Ernst (1891-1976) was a German painter, sculptor and graphic artist, and was one of the chief representatives of Dadaism and Surrealism. He described the following episode in the development of frottage (a surrealist technique): I was struck by the obsession that showed to my excited gaze the floorboards upon which a thousand scrubbings had deepened the grooves… I made from the boards a series of drawings by placing on them, at random, sheets of paper which I undertook too rub with black lead. In gazing attentively at the drawings thus obtained… I was surprised by the sudden intensification of my visionary capacities and by the hallucinatory succession of contradictory images superimposed, one upon the other.

Henry Moore (1898-1986), the English sculptor, described a similar process, this time highlighting the need to have a prepared mind:


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Sometimes for several years running I have been to the same part of the seashore – but each year a new shape of pebble has caught my eye, which the year before, though it was there in hundreds, I never saw. Out of the millions of pebbles passed in walking along the shore, I choose out to see with excitement only those which fit in with my existing form-interest at the time.


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Humour Humour is the tendency of a particular cognitive experience to provoke laughter and provide amusement. Creativity and humour are closely related since developing skills in creativity may help create humour, and appreciating a wide variety of humour, may help develop one’s creativity. It has been suggested that humour comprehension and creativity should be similar because both require the ability to link disparities. Humour often depends upon unexpected or unusual associations; so a person’s ability to generate and understand humour would seem to depend, at least partly, on ideational fluidity. And ideational fluidity is theorized to be the essence of creativity. Edward de Bono (1991) writes about humour in his book I am Right, You are Wrong: Humour is by far the most significant behaviour of the human mind. Humour tells us more about how the brain works as a mind, than does any other behaviour of the mind - including reason. It indicates other thinking methods, something about perception, and the possibility of changes in perception. Humour is so significant because it is based on logic very different from our traditional logic. Imagine your path of thinking following definite paths. There are potential side-paths but these have been temporarily suppressed by the dominant track. If somehow we can manage to get across from the main track to the side-track, the route back to the starting point is very obvious. This moving sideways across tracks is the origin of the term lateral thinking. The significance of humour is precisely that it indicates pattern-forming, pattern asymmetry and pattern-switching. Creativity and lateral thinking have exactly the same basis as humour.

Leading American neurologist Vilayanur Ramachandran thinks humour should even be formally taught in schools: You wouldn't think you'd normally have jokes and humour as part of a school syllabus, but I think they're very important because they teach people how to be creative. Jokes involve juxtaposing seemingly unrelated ideas, seeing something from a novel vantage point, and that's the basis of all creativity.

The processes of bisociation and conceptual blending are used to create novel meanings as a result of a shift in perspective. Koestler says that humour results when two different frames of reference are set up and a collision is engineered between them. Production of ideas is essential to both humour and creativity. The juxtaposing of varied thoughts and perspectives gives rise to uncommon ideas.


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Humour can be depicted through several media relevant to this paper: comic strips, lyrical compositions and comic novels. Pearls before Swine, Calvin and Hobbes, Dilbert and Garfield are some of the most well-known and appreciated cartoon strips, popular for their use of humour and sarcasm. Satirical bands like Tenacious D and artists such as “Weird Al” Yankovic are famous for their humourous songs that make light in popular culture. P.G. Wodehouse is one of the most notable British comic novelists, whose work follows on from that of Jerome K. Jerome. Humour and creativity are complementary to each other; humour may be used to express creativity and creativity may manifest itself in humourous ideas. Again, it is quite difficult to distinguish between the two.


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Age Over the decades, a number of psychologists have attempted to link age and the levels of creative achievement. George Beard (1874) studied the biographies of more than a thousand eminent persons to ascertain at what ages they made their major contributions to history. According to him, achievement tends to increase rapidly up to a peak just before age 40 and then decline very slowly to almost nothing by age 80. Almost eighty years after Beard, Harvey Lehman (1953) published his own conclusions on this subject, this time with a much more systematic, objective and quantitative approach to the biographical data. Lehman presented an impressive series of tabulations giving counts of major creative contributions as a function of age. Lehman created age distributions for important achievements in dozens of activities, and then used these distributions to identify “the maximum average rate of highly superior production.” So, for example, he concluded that the most productive ages were 32-36 for painters, 26-31 for lyric poets and 40-44 for novelists. However, Lehman has been criticized for building his analysis upon the most notable creative products of each creator and not looking at the creators’ total output. David Galenson, a professor of the Economics Department at the University of Chicago, has postulated a new theory of artistic creativity. Based on a study of the ages at which various innovative artists made their greatest contributions to the field, Galenson’s theory (2006) divides all artists into either Experimental Innovators or Conceptual Innovators. Experimental artists, endlessly seek. The imprecision of their goals means that these artists rarely feel they have succeeded, and their careers are often dominated by the pursuit of a single objective. As a result, their innovations develop slowly over a long period of experimentation and refinement. Conceptual artists, on the other hand, make radical innovations in their field at an early age and their goals for a particular work can usually be stated precisely in advance of its production. Probably the most fitting example of a distinction between an Experimentalist and a Conceptualist would be that of Paul Cézanne and Pablo Picasso. Cézanne, who declared that “I seek in painting,” is an archetypal experimental artist. The irony of his expression of frustration at the end of his life stems not only from the fact that within a few years the reclusive artist would come to be recognized as the greatest painter of his generation, but that it would be the work of his last few years that would inspire every important artist of the next generation. The art historian Meyer Schapiro described Cézanne’s art as “a model of steadfast searching” that culminated in a final “period of magnificent growth.” Cézanne’s best single year, with reference to the number of illustrations he produced was at age 67.


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Picasso was a great conceptual innovator, who emphasized the contrast between his method and that of Cézanne by declaring “I don’t seek; I find.” Picasso often planned his paintings carefully in advance. During the winter of 1906-07, he filled a series of sketchbooks with preparatory studies for Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, the large painting that would become his most famous single work. Picasso’s certainty about art contrasted sharply with Cézanne’s doubt. Picasso’s best single year with reference to the number of illustrations he produced was at age 26. (Galenson, 2006) Galenson also applies this theory to literature. According to him, Robert Frost plainly fits the category of the experimenter: his greatest poems were a product of long and careful observation. Like many other experimental artists, he believed the most lasting works of art were those that were not planned, but discovered in the act of execution – no surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader. Frost’s art matured slowly. He wrote his most frequently anthologized poem, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, at the age of 48. At the end of that poem, Frost quietly emphasized the narrator’s determination to continue to struggle against the adversity in his life – not by resorting to abstract or lofty rhetoric, but by repeating the simple statement of his immediate goal: The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep. On the other hand, T.S. Eliot was a conceptual artist. He composed his most frequently anthologized poem – the single most anthologized American poem of the 20th century – in the library at Harvard, where he was a graduate student in Philosophy. He wrote The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock at the age of just 23. Eleven years later, Eliot wrote his famous long poem The Waste Land, which was recently voted by a panel of leading poets the best American poem of the 20th century. (Galenson, 2006) According the Galenson, Creativity is not the domain of either theorists or empiricists, nor are major innovations made exclusively by the young or the old. The conceptual innovators are most often the young geniuses, who revolutionize their disciplines early in their careers, whereas the experimental innovators are the old masters, whose greatest achievements usually arrive late in their lives.


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Personal Experiences Personal experiences have a tremendous influence on creativity. Every individual has his/her share of personal victories, tragedies and experiences; and though they may not enhance the level of creativity, they may become anecdotes to include in creative thought. Some creators may draw inspiration from these events by creating works that will immortalize these experiences; while some others may delve deeper into disjoint creativity in order to escape these events. Again, there may not be any empirical evidence, yet, that personal events do influence creativity; but logically speaking, these experiences, unique to every person, may be one of the factors that have an impact on their creative output, amongst others. Several authors include autobiographical instances in their works. Also known as a thinly veiled memoir, a semi-autobiographical novel draws heavily on the experiences of the author's own life for its plot. Authors may opt to write a semi-autobiographical novel rather than a true memoir for a variety of reasons: to protect the privacy of their family, friends, and loved ones; to achieve emotional distance from the subject; or for artistic reasons, such as simplification of plot lines, themes, and other details. Some famous novels in this genre are Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield, Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, Sidney Sheldon’s autobiographical memoirs in The Other Side of Me and John Grogan’s Marley and Me. Confessional poetry displays intimate, and sometimes unflattering, information about details of the poet's personal life, such as in poems about illness, sexuality, and despondence. The ‘confessionalist’ label was applied to a number of poets of the 1950s and 1960s. John Berryman, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, Theodore Roethke and Anne Sexton have all been called 'Confessional Poets'. The following is a verse for Sylvia Plath’s 1962 poem, Daddy, which is considered to be a response to her complex relationship with her father, Otto Plath, who died before her eighth birthday:

You stand at the blackboard, daddy, In the picture I have of you, A cleft in your chin instead of your foot But no less a devil for that, no not Any less the black man who Bit my pretty red heart in two. I was ten when they buried you. At twenty I tried to die And get back, back, back to you. I thought even the bones would do.


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Similarly, in the field of visual arts, painters’ individual experiences affect their creations and perhaps their creativity as well. For example, Claude Monet painted his wife, Camille Doncieux, on her death bed, when she passed away due to tuberculosis in 1879. Vincent Van Gogh painted several masterpieces such as Bedroom at Arles and The Red Vineyard during his stay at Arles¹. These paintings were depictions of what he observed in his surroundings and were expressions of his refined creativity. Moreover, Van Gogh painted two portraits in oil of his physician, Dr. Paul Gachet. Picasso depicted the bombing of Guernica, Spain, by twenty-eight German bombers on 26 April, 1937 in his extensive mural titled Guernica. Guernica shows the tragedies of war and the suffering war inflicts upon individuals, and in particular, innocent civilians. This monumental work has eclipsed the bounds of a single time and place, becoming a perpetual reminder of the tragedies of war, an antiwar symbol, and an embodiment of peace.

Lyrical compositions of several artists also include personal experiences. Sunday Bloody Sunday by U2 (an Irish band) is one of their most overtly political songs; its lyrics describe the horror felt by an observer of The Troubles² in Northern Ireland. Leaving Beirut by Roger Waters is based on a short story about Waters’ hitchhiking excursion in Lebanon when he was a teenager. This track was inspired by the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Dear Bobbie by Yellowcard is a song based on a love letter that lead singer Ryan Key's grandfather wrote to his wife. The beginning of the song is Ryan's grandfather, who was 87 years old at the time, reading the letter.

Notes: 1. Arles is a city in Southern France, where Van Gogh resided in the Yellow House at No. 2, Place Lamartine from Feb 1888 – May 1889. 2. The Troubles refers to approximately three decades of violence between elements of Northern Ireland’s nationalist community (principally Roman Catholic) and unionist community (principally Protestant).


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Sexual Preferences Studies suggest that sexual preferences may have an impact on creativity exhibited. These preferences may enhance or depress the manifestation of creative work. However, this is a highly open-ended assumption and does not hold true in all cases of creative individuals. It is also important to mention here that this sub-section does not measure the level of sexuality displayed in creativity, nor does it imply the role of gender in one’s creativity. It merely speculates whether the sexual preferences of a creative individual are related to his/her creativity. Persons who do not deviate from regular sexual preferences are not any less creative than those who embrace homosexuality or bisexuality. However, one’s sexual orientation may be a factor that contributes to the expression of creativity; also, it may become subject matter for one to write, sing or paint about. According to a study by John F. McDermott titled, Emily Dickenson Revisited: A Study of Periodicity in her Work, Her 8-year period of productivity (1858–1865) was marked by two 4-year phases. The first shows a seasonal pattern characterized by greater creative output in spring and summer and a lesser output during the fall and winter. This pattern was interrupted by an emotional crisis that marked the beginning of the second phase, a 4-year sustained period of greatly heightened productivity and the emergence of a revolutionary poetic style.

Laszlo Varga presents additional information regarding the mystery of the emotional crisis in Dickinson’s poetry and life. The Riddle of Emily Dickinson by Rebecca Patterson (1951) reports that Dickinson’s crisis happened during the breakup of a loving relationship with another woman. This woman was Kate Scott Anthon, a worldly, intelligent, bisexual woman who was herself a poet. The two ladies met the first time in March 1859 in Amherst, and the mutual attraction was immediate. But in that prejudiced, puritan, Calvinistic atmosphere, such a friendship was threatened with danger of large magnitude. Thus Dickinson enveloped the relationship with symbolic substitutions, so much so that analytical expertise is needed to decipher the meaning of words such as diamond, pearl, dusk gem, soldier, pilgrim, and a dozen other characters, all representing Anthon. Anthon realized the socially precarious nature of their entanglement and broke up the relationship in a letter in April 1861. Dickinson, her heart wounded, wanted to share her secret and did not mind if the truth emerged after her death.


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Perhaps the most moving lines that escaped editorial alteration include a frank disclosure and show remorse: I shall not murmur if at last The one I loved below Permission have to understand For what I shunned so— Divulging it would rest my heart But it would ravage theirs Why, Katie, treason has a voice But mine dispels in tears. Fundamental to Michelangelo's art was his love of male beauty, which attracted him both aesthetically and emotionally. In part, this was an expression of the Renaissance idealization of masculinity. But in Michelangelo's art there is clearly a sensual response to this aesthetic. The statue of David as well as the elaborate frescos on the Sistine Chapel ceiling assert this fact. He nurtured great love toward Tommaso dei Cavalieri (c. 1509–1587), who was 23 years old when Michelangelo met him in 1532, at the age of 57. It is impossible to know for certain if Michelangelo had physical relationships; but through his poetry and visual art, we can at least glimpse the nature of his imagination. Freddie Mercury (1946-1991) was an English singer-songwriter and co-founder of the band Queen. While some critics have suggested that Mercury hid his sexual orientation from the public, other sources refer to the singer as having been “openly gay”. In fact, Mercury referred to himself as “gay” in a 1974 interview with New Musical Express magazine; “I am as gay as a daffodil, my dear,” being one of his most famous quotes. Sir Elton John is an English singer-songwriter, composer and pianist, who. In a 1976 Rolling Stone interview announced that he was bisexual. He stated his belief that everyone is bisexual to a degree. John later renounced his bisexuality and came out as being gay instead. He has also acknowledged that his music has a feminine touch. The above instances of musical artists having different sexual preferences does not state why or how they evolved to be highly creative. However, their sexual orientation may have a significant role in their creative work; again, accepting their sexual preferences may have only eased their display of creative thought. It is important to mention that the assumption that sexual orientation may play a part in executing creativity has not yet been researched on empirically.


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Substance Abuse Substance abuse is the overindulgence of drugs or other chemicals that are detrimental to an individual’s physical and mental health. It may lead to dependence as well as a tolerance toward the substance consumed. Substance abuse has been linked to the levels of creativity exhibited; some theorists are of the opinion that it may cause individuals to showcase enhanced creativity, while others opinionate that substance abuse only deteriorates their functioning and slowly drains out any creativity that ever existed. The use and abuse of drugs and alcohol is not uncommon in the fields of study of this paper. Several authors, poets, musicians as well as artists have had severe addictions, some even leading to premature deaths. Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) was one of the English Lake Poets and was known to have been a regular user of opium as a relaxant. The degree to which he experimented with the drug as a creative enhancement is not clear. Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) was an English writer and was well known for advocating and taking hallucinogens. His later works such as The Doors of Perception (1954) and Heaven and Hell (1956) are said to be strongly influenced by both mysticism and psychedelic drugs. Psychedelic Art is the art inspired by the psychedelic experience induced by drugs such as LSD, Mescaline and Psilocybin. The word psychedelic, coined by British psychologist Humphrey Osmond, means mind manifesting. Psychedelic drugs provide altered states of consciousness and are believed to be a source of artistic inspiration. In the sphere of music, numerous artists have battled alcohol and drug abuse throughout their lives. George Harrison (The Beatles), Johnny Cash, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley, Jim Morrison (The Doors’ frontman), Kurt Cobain (Nirvana’s frontman), Syd Barrett (Pink Floyd’s founding member) and John Bonham (Led Zeppelin’s drummer) are a few musical sensations who succumbed to the excessive and deadly use of addictive substances. The genre of Jazz has been the most associated with the perils of substance abuse. Artists such as Charlie Parker, Art Pepper, Chet Baker, Lester Young, Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, and Billie Holiday all dealt with addictions at some point in their careers. In an Article by Gerald H. Tolson and Michael J. Cuyjet (2007), Jazz musicians and their addiction has been correlated to their output of creative talent. The abstract of “Jazz and Substance Abuse: Road to creative genius or pathway to premature death” is as follows: Jazz music and jazz musicians have often been linked for better or worse to the world of addictive substances. Many talented jazz musicians either had their careers sidetracked or prematurely ended due to their addiction to drugs and/or alcohol. The rigors of nightly performances, travel, and for many musicians a disapproving society exacted a toll that impacted the creativity of


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many artists of the genre. The fact that drug and alcohol use had a significant impact on the performance levels of numerous jazz musicians in the 1940's and 1950's has been much discussed, but more study of that impact is warranted. While recent research has provided new information regarding this challenging topic, there is still much to learn. Indeed, a number of questions for inquiry may be posed. Among those questions are the following: Was the work of these jazz artists truly inspired? Would their creative output have been enhanced had they not been addicted to substances? What was the impact of the addictive substances on their ability to function as creative artists and is there evidence to refute or verify that impact? Are there identifiable traits in certain artists that allowed them to be creative in spite of their addictions? This examination presents an evaluation of the evidence of the link between creativity and substance abuse especially as it relates to selected jazz artists during this time period and how they remained creative and actually prospered in their careers in spite of addictions to controlled substances. During one of the most prolific periods of jazz creativity, 1940–1960, many of the most creative jazz legends wrestled with addictions to drugs and/or alcohol. Many talented jazz musicians either had their careers sidetracked or prematurely ended due to their addictions. Charlie Parker probably best exemplifies the addicted jazz star as he abused his body with alcohol and drugs off and on throughout his adult life. One recollection was by pianist Hampton Hawes, who “watched him line up and take down eleven shots of whisky, pop a handful of bennies, then tie [shoot] up, smoking a joint at the same time. He sweated like a horse for 5 min, got up, put on his suit and half an hour later was on the stand playing strong and beautiful” However, the use of addictive substances may not always have rendered enhancement to the music performed. Parker, himself, stated, “Any musician, who says he is playing better on tea [marijuana], the needle, or when he is juiced, is a plain, straight liar.” The limited number of empirical studies and the difficulty of being able to quantify much of the available data preclude strong conclusions on the effect of substance use on jazz artists. Thus, there is a limited basis for answering the question of whether these artists’ creative output would have been enhanced without their addictions. Still unresolved is the question of whether that level of creativity can be reached without mind-altering substances. To many, the answer to that question is yes. Indeed, as demonstrated by the extensive list of creative people throughout history who have not resorted to chemicals to assist their inspiration, creativity is a gift that can be manifested in a number of different ways. However, it would also be erroneous to ignore the documentation of the number of jazz musicians who, for whatever reasons, abused drugs yet were highly creative. (Tolson & Cuyjet, 2007)


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Other Creators “Setting an example is not the main means of influencing others; it is the only means.” - Albert Einstein Sometimes, other creators, across fields, may drive one to express his/her creativity. This expression may be in contrast to the former creator’s work, or may be an off-shoot of the same idea or thought. Creative individuals may only create to have their work evaluated, criticized or appreciated by others in the field. Any creative individual can be the influenced as well as the influencer – this attribute is capable of working both ways. Other creators existing within the same genre may be a source of inspiration to create similar or sometimes, strikingly different creative works. Genius does not exist in isolation; rather one genius clusters with others of greater and lesser fame in adjacent generations. These clusters were called configurations by Alfred Kroeber, who was one of the most influential figures in American anthropology in the first half of the twentieth century. When a configuration reaches a crest, a Golden Age of creative activity results; when the configuration descends to a trough, a Dark Age occurs. Kroeber argued that geniuses cluster in history because the key figures of one generation emulate¹ those in the immediately preceding generations. Kroeber quoted an ancient though obscure Roman historian, Velleius Paterculus, who said: Genius is fostered by emulation, and it is now envy, now admiration, which enkindles imitation, and, in the nature of things, that which is cultivated with the highest zeal advances to the highest perfection; but it is difficult to continue at the point of perfection, and naturally that which cannot advance must recede. And as in the beginning we are fired with the ambition to overtake those whom we regard as leaders, so when we have despaired of being able either to surpass or even to equal them, our zeal wanes with our hope; it ceases to follow what it cannot overtake, and abandoning the old field as though pre-empted, it seeks a new one.

Thus, as each generation builds upon the one before it, it attains a high point of perfection that stymies further growth. The tradition degenerates into empty imitation, as most creative minds move on to greener pastures. (Simonton, 1994) Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael have been often named the three giants of the High Renaissance. Mutual influence and rivalry existed blatantly between the three artists, which may have driven them to surpass their own levels of creativity, along with those of their contemporaries.

Notes: 1. The word emulation refers to an ambition and effort to equal, excel or surpass another; to compete or rival with some degree of success, especially through imitation.


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Jimmy Page is an English guitarist and composer, famous as the co-founder of Led Zeppelin. Hearing Elvis Presley’s Baby Let’s Play House is cited by Page as being his inspiration to take up playing the guitar. He was influenced by acoustic folk rock and the blues sounds of B.B. King, Otis Rush, Buddy Guy and Freddie King to name a few. “Basically that was the start; a mixture between rock and blues.” He has been inducted twice in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and is considered to be, unquestionably, one of the most influential and versatile guitarists in the history of rock. Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, poet, author and painter, who has been a major figure in folk music since the past five decades. A number of his songs such as Blowing in the Wind and Times They Are A’ Changin’ became anthems of the American Civil Rights Movements. Dylan’s early lyrics incorporated political, social, philosophical and literary influences, defying existing pop music conventions and appealing widely to the counter-culture. Dylan was continuously influenced by contemporary artists as well as artists with whom he collaborated. Similarly, Dylan’s influence has been felt in several musical genres. Artists like John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen, Joni Mitchell and Cat Stevens have acknowledged Dylan’s importance in their own musical works. Also, some of Dylan’s free association lyrics were similar to the style of Beat poetry and were an early forerunner of Rap and Hip-Hop.


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Medium Medium refers to any technique or material used by an individual to execute a creative thought. The media through which one expresses oneself is proposed to be an influencer on the output. The choice of medium and the way in which it is handled can have a significant influence on creative expression. Using different media to showcase the same idea may affect the appearance, presentation and outcome of the notion itself. The media through which creative ideas are expressed also has an impact on the idea. For example, if one is depicting a landscape on a canvas, the art materials used may affect the original vision of the painting. A wide variety of paints such as oil, acrylic, enamel and water colours have different effects depending on the weave of the canvas. Similarly, charcoal, oil pastels, graphite pencils and ink pens have varied outcomes. In addition to this, if the same person were to attempt to exhibit the same landscape, using computer software (the assumption being the individual has the ability to operate the software), the result would be entirely different. This effect of medium holds true for the fields of musical expression and literary communication as well. Different instruments render different effects on the music being performed. Also, there is an obvious difference between putting down your thoughts using a pen and paper, a pencil and paper, a Dictaphone, typing them out using a typewriter and typing them using a computer. It is important to mention here the influence that the change of a writing instrument brought about in Nietzsche’s philosophy and work. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 – 1900) was a nineteenth century German philosopher. He wrote critical texts on religion, morality, contemporary culture, philosophy and science, using s distinctive German language style and displaying a fondness for metaphor and aphorism. In his later years, his vision was failing, and keeping his eyes focused on a page had become exhausting and painful, often bringing on crushing headaches. He had been forced to curtail his writing, and feared that he would have to give it up soon. In 1881, when he was almost blind, Nietzsche wanted to buy a typewriter to enable him to continue his writing and purchased a Malling-Hansen Writing Ball (Model 1878). Nietzsche received his writing ball in 1882. It was the newest model, the portable tall one with a colour ribbon, serial number 125; several typescripts are known to have been written by him on this writing ball. Also, it was only possible to type in the upper case on this writing ball. The machine had a striking effect on his work. One of Nietzsche’s friends, Heinrich Köselitz, a composer, noticed a change in the style of his writing. His already terse prose had become even tighter, more telegraphic. The “distinctness of the letters” had an effect on more than just the “pithiness of the sayings” for which Köselitz thanked Nietzsche on February 19, 1882 from Venice: Dear Professor,


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I would like to thank you most kindly for your generous writing sample. I was very surprised by the distinctness of your letters, but more so by the pithiness of the sayings… - I would like to see how the typewriter is manipulated. I would think that it takes much practice before the lines flow smoothly. Perhaps you will even acquire a new way of expressing yourself with this instrument. At least this could happen to me. I do not deny that my “thoughts” in music and words often depend on the quality of the quill and paper. This is perhaps the most appropriate judgment of my “thoughts”. Nietzsche answered: YOU ARE RIGHT – OUR WRITING INSTRUMENTS WORK ALONG WITH OUR THOUGHTS.

Friedrich Nietzsche’s typewriter, a Malling-Hansen Writing Ball


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Mental Illness “Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence -- whether much that is glorious -- whether all that is profound -- does not spring from disease of thought -- from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect.” - Edgar Allen Poe (Eleonora, 1850) Since antiquity, mental illness has been linked to creativity, with Aristotle associating genius with madness by quoting, “No great genius has ever been without some madness.” Several studies have been made in the field of mental illness, particularly mood disorders, and levels of creative thought. This section, divided into two, will aim at stating a clearer view of the mad-genius controversy, with appropriate empirical data.

Mood Disorders A mood disorder is the term given for a group of diagnoses in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-IV Text Revision classification system where a disturbance in the person’s emotional mood is hypothesized to be the main underlying feature. Within mood disorders, the best known and most researched in the context of creativity are Major Depressive Disorder and Bipolar (Manic-Depressive) Disorder. Other disorders within the Affective spectrum may accompany the aforementioned mood disorders. Nancy C. Andreasen, in her 1987 study, found that 80% of her eminent creative writers had a history of a major mood disorder as compared to 30% of their matched control subjects. The abstract of “Creativity and Mental Illness: Prevalence rates in writers and their first-degree relatives” by Andreasen is as follows: Rates of mental illness were examined in 30 creative writers, 30 matched control subjects, and the first-degree relatives of both groups. The writers had a substantially higher rate of mental illness, predominantly affective disorder, with a tendency toward the bipolar subtype. There was also a higher prevalence of affective disorder and creativity in the writers' first-degree relatives, suggesting that these traits run together in families and could be genetically mediated. Both writers and control subjects had IQs in the superior range; the writers excelled only on the WAIS (Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale) vocabulary subtest, confirming previous observations that intelligence and creativity are independent mental abilities.


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However, there were several limitations to the study. The failure to directly interview the first-degree relatives of the subjects was a drawback, since direct interview is usually considered to be more valid than the family history method¹. Also, the investigator was not blind to the sample with respect to creativity, thereby raising the possibility of biased estimates for the relatives of the writers. (Andreasen, 1987) Kay Redfield Jamison’s 1989 study on “Mood Disorders and Patterns of Creativity in British Writers and Artists” found that over one-third of her subjects (N=47) had sought treatment for a mood disorder. Poets, playwrights, novelists, biographers and artists, having won prestigious prizes or awards in their respective fields, were included in this study. According to Jamison, Profound changes in mood, cognition, personality, sleep, energy and behaviour characterize both altered mood and creative states. For writers and artists, who draw so deeply from their lives and emotions for their work, the wide range, intensity, fluctuation and variability of emotional experience brought about by mood disorders can work to the advantage, as well as disadvantage, of original composition.

Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament, by Jamison (1993) describes a wide range of case histories of poets, composers, artists and writers, providing ample evidence to link melancholy, mania and the creative impulse. Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Robert Schumann, Peter Tchaikovsky, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Ernest Hemingway, Edvard Munch, Paul Gauguin and Vincent Van Gogh are a few eminent creative persons studied in elaborate depth by Jamison. However, her extensive study made on George Gordon, Lord Byron describes the cycle of depression and mania in his life, poetry and work in vivid detail. An excerpt form the book states: Symptoms consistent with mania, depression and mixed states are evident in the descriptions of Byron given by his physicians, friends and Byron himself. His mood fluctuations were extreme, ranging from the suicidally melancholic to the irritable, volatile, violent and expansive… The clinical hallmark of manic-depressive illness is its recurring, episodic nature. Byron had this in an almost textbook manner, showing frequent and pronounced fluctuations in mood, energy, sleep patterns, sexual behaviour, alcohol and other drug use and weight… Yet Byron’s temperament, coupled with his poetic genius, made him what he was. His temperament also, however, made him exquisitely responsive to virtually everything in his physical and psychological world; it gave to him much of his great capacity for passion and understanding, as well as for suffering.

Notes: 1. The diagnoses of first-degree relatives were made according to the Family History Research Diagnostic Criteria. This technique involves collecting information about the family directly from the subject, rather than by interviewing all relatives personally.


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John F. McDermott (2001) having studied the life and works of Emily Dickinson, states that her writing career offers data suggestive of affective illness during her productive years. The abstract of “Emily Dickinson Revisited: A Study of Periodicity in her Work” is:

Objective: Emily Dickinson, arguably one of America’s foremost poets, is characterized by critics as able to capture extreme emotional states in her greatest work. Recent dating of her poems offers the periodicity of her writing as a behaviour that can be examined for patterns of affective illness that may relate to these states. Method: The bulk of Dickinson’s work was written during a clearly defined 8year period when she was age 28–35. Poems written during that period, 18581865, were grouped by year and examined for annual and seasonal distribution. Results: Her 8-year period of productivity was marked by two 4-year phases. The first shows a seasonal pattern characterized by greater creative output in spring and summer and a lesser output during the fall and winter. This pattern was interrupted by an emotional crisis that marked the beginning of the second phase, a 4-year sustained period of greatly heightened productivity and the emergence of a revolutionary poetic style. Conclusions: These data, supported by excerpts from letters to friends during this period of Dickinson’s life, demonstrate seasonal changes in mood during the first four years of major productivity, followed by a sustained elevation of creative energy, mood, and cognition during the second. They suggest, as supported by family history, a bipolar pattern previously described in creative artists. Again, the limitations of this study are well recognized. Diagnostic impression without examination is conjecture at best. Furthermore, the sample of poems available may be incomplete; i.e., it is possible that others were written and lost or destroyed and were not included in those found in Dickinson’s room after her death. However, this study is the first quantitative data-based assessment of Dickinson’s work with use of the periodicity of her poetry writing as a measure. Its primary purpose was to discover new information about Emily Dickinson, rather than explain her. James C. Kaufman (2001) has conducted a similar study, attempting to explain the link between creativity and mental illness among writers. The abstract of “The Sylvia Plath Effect: Mental Illness in Eminent Creative Writers” is as under: Although many studies (e.g., Andreasen, 1987; Jamison, 1989; Ludwig, 1995) have demonstrated that creative writers are prone to suffer from mental illness, this relationship has not been truly examined in depth. Is this finding true of all writers? In Study One, 1,629 writers were analyzed for signs of mental illness. Female poets were found to be significantly more likely to suffer from mental illness than female fiction writers or male writers of any type. Study Two extended the analysis to 520 eminent women (poets, fiction writers, non-fiction writers, visual artists, politicians, and actresses), and again found the poets to be significantly more likely to experience mental illness. This early finding has


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been dubbed "the Sylvia Plath effect," and implications and possibilities for future research are discussed. Martin Gayford’s The Yellow House (2006) describes the remarkable nine weeks that Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin spent together at Arles (23 Oct 1888 – 26 Dec 1888). Both Van Gogh and Gauguin painted daily, working side by side, generally painting the same scene or model or each other. Both wrote several times per week to Theo Van Gogh, Vincent’s brother and Gauguin’s agent, about Vincent’s deteriorating mental state. The night that Gauguin moved out because he could no longer tolerate Vincent’s irritability, Vincent cut off part of his own ear and presented it to a prostitute at a brothel that both of them had visited regularly together. When Gauguin returned in the morning to the Yellow House to retrieve the rest of his belongings, the police summoned by the brothel owner were outside and arrested him for Vincent’s murder. Gauguin insisted on going upstairs to the bedroom, where they found Vincent alive, in a fetal position, and took him to a mental hospital. After a brief hospitalization, Vincent returned to the Yellow House alone to paint the Self Portrait with Bandaged Ear. Gayford formulates bipolar disorder, mixed-type with rapid cycling with DSMIV-like precision, based on Gauguin’s descriptions. But he uses Vincent’s own words to conclude that he did not paint because he was mad; rather, he painted to keep from being mad. Based on the above detailed research and studies made by several psychologists, it is certain that mood disorders, specifically Bipolar Disorder, are related to the generation of creative output. However, one does not prove causation of the other.

Starry Night Vincent Van Gogh, 1889 Oil on canvas 73 x 92 cm Museum of Modern Art, New York City © Hansika Kapoor 2009.All rights reserved.

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Psychosis “Is there no way out of the mind?” - Sylvia Plath (Apprehensions, 1962) Psychosis literally means an abnormal condition of the mind, and is a generic psychiatric term for a mental state often described as involving a loss of contact with reality. People experiencing psychosis may report hallucinations or delusional beliefs and may exhibit personality changes and disorganized thinking. The term Outsider Art was coined by art critic Roger Cardinal in 1972 as an English synonym for Art Brut, a label created by French artist Jean Dubuffet to describe art created outside the boundaries of official culture. Dubuffet focused particularly on art by insane asylum inmates. Philippe Pinel, the pioneering French alienist, appears to have been the first to write about the art of the mentally ill. In his Medical Treatise on Mental Disorder or Mania, published in 1801, he made mention of two patients who drew and painted. A little later, the American Benjamin Rush wrote that the development of insanity could sometimes unearth hidden artistic talents: it could throw upon its surface precious and splendid fossils, the existence of which was unknown to the proprietors of the soil in which they were buried. (Beveridge, 2001) In 1921 Dr. Walter Morgenthaler published his book Ein Geisteskranker als Künstler (A Psychiatric Patient as Artist) on Adolf Wölfli, a psychotic mental patient in his care. Wölfli, a Swiss artist, came to be known as one of the foremost artists in the Art Brut tradition. He had spontaneously taken up drawing, and this activity seemed to calm him. Wölfli produced a huge number of works during his life, often working with the barest of materials and trading smaller works with visitors to the clinic to obtain pencils, paper or other essentials. Morgenthaler closely observed Wölfli's methods, writing in his influential book: Every Monday morning Wölfli is given a new pencil and two large sheets of unprinted newsprint. The pencil is used up in two days; then he has to make do with the stubs he has saved or with whatever he can beg off someone else. He often writes with pieces only five to seven millimeters long and even with the broken-off points of lead, which he handles deftly, holding them between his fingernails. He carefully collects packing paper and any other paper he can get from the guards and patients in his area; otherwise he would run out of paper before the next Sunday night. At Christmas the house gives him a box of coloured pencils, which lasts him two or three weeks at the most.

In 1908, Wölfli set about creating a semi-autobiographical epic which eventually stretched to 45 volumes, containing a total of over 25,000 pages, 1,600 illustrations and 1,500 collages. This work was a mix of elements of his own life blended with fantastical stories of his adventures from which he transformed himself from a child to Knight Adolf to Emperor Adolf and finally to St. Adolf II. Text and illustrations formed the narrative, sometimes combining multiple elements on kaleidoscopic pages of music, words and colour.


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General view of the Island, Neveranger Adolf Wölfli, 1911 The images Wölfli produced were complex, intricate and intense. They worked to the very edges of the page with detailed borders and were characterized by Horror Vacui. In philosophy, Horror Vacui stands for a theory initially proposed by Aristotle, stating that nature abhors a vacuum. In visual art, Horror Vacui (a fear of empty spaces) is the filling of the entire surface of an artwork with ornamental details, figures, shapes, lines and anything else that the artist might envision. It also refers to the problem some artists face when encountering a fresh canvas. Van Gogh’s thoughts on facing a blank canvas in a letter to Theo van Gogh (October 1884) were: Just slap anything on when you see a blank canvas staring you in the face like some imbecile. You don't know how paralyzing that is - that stare of a blank canvas is - which says to the painter, ‘You can't do a thing’. The canvas has an idiotic stare and mesmerizes some painters so much that they turn into idiots themselves. Many painters are afraid in front of the blank canvas, but the blank canvas is afraid of the real, passionate painter who dares and who has broken the spell of `you can't' once and for all.

Artistry of the Mentally Ill was a 1922 book by psychiatrist Hans Prinzhorn, was the first attempt to analyze the drawings of the mentally ill, not merely psychologically, but also aesthetically. Prinzhorn presented the works of “ten schizophrenic masters” such as Karl Brendel, Peter Moog and August Neter – all German schizophrenic outsider artists. Having rejected an inventory of the superficial traits of insane art, Prinzhorn judged that the work of patients with schizophrenia was best characterized by a disquieting feeling of strangeness.


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Jean Dubuffet, influenced by Prinzhorn’s book, coined the term Art Brut and began his own collection of such art. The collection he established came to be known as Collection de l’Art Brut and is housed at the Musée de l’Art Brut in Lausanne, Switzerland. He characterized the art form as: Those works created from solitude and from pure and authentic creative impulses where the worries of competition, acclaim and social promotion do not interfere - are, because of these very facts, more precious than the productions of professions. After a certain familiarity with these flourishings of an exalted feverishness, lived so fully and so intensely by their authors, we cannot avoid the feeling that in relation to these works, cultural art in its entirety appears to be the game of a futile society, a fallacious parade.

Outsider music are songs and compositions by musicians who are not part of the commercial music industry who write songs that ignore standard musical or lyrical conventions, either because they have no formal training or because they disagree with formal rules. In some cases, outsider musicians have characteristics such as mental illness or a reclusive lifestyle that may influence their musical style, such as Daniel Johnston, who suffers from bipolar disorder, Wesley Willis, who had schizophrenia, and Pink Floyd founding member Syd Barrett, with an uncertain psychiatric condition that may have been drug-induced. The art of the insane is overwhelming, especially since they create their art in the absence of competition, criticism, approval or monetary motives. Their art is pure and raw; they create solely to externalize their internal visions and to satisfy their own internal needs.

Hexenkopf (The Witch’s Head) August Neter, 1915 Prinzhorn Collection “There is a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.” - Oscar Levant


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Creativity Techniques Creativity techniques are methods that encourage original thoughts and divergent thinking. Some techniques require groups of two or more people while other techniques can be accomplished alone. These methods include word games, written exercises and different types of improvisation. Creativity techniques can be used to develop new materials for artistic purposes or to solve problems. The technique that allows an individual to be most creative is subjective and varies from person to person. This section will outline four creativity techniques.

Brainstorming Brainstorming, when used without further qualification, may refer to a wide range of different approaches intended to generate ideas more effectively than through unstructured efforts. Brainstorming is a creativity technique designed to generate a large number of ideas for the solution to a problem. The technique may involve individual or team efforts. The principles behind brainstorming can be traced back to Eastern religious ceremonies in which participants were instructed to speak spontaneously and with an emptying of the mind of critical thoughts. Its modern applications are widely associated with the work of Alex Faickney Osborn, a partner in an advertising agency. The method was popularized in the late 1930s by Osborn in a book called Applied Imagination. Osborn proposed that groups could double their creative output by using the method of brainstorming (Osborn, 1963). He found that conventional business meetings were inhibiting the creation of new ideas and proposed some rules designed to help stimulate them. He was looking for rules which would give people the freedom of mind and action to spark off and reveal new ideas. To “think up” was originally the term he used to describe the process he developed, and that in turn came to be known as “brainstorming”. He described brainstorming as “a conference technique by which a group attempts to find a solution for a specific problem by amassing all the ideas spontaneously by its members”. Osborn’s approach is based on two interrelated concepts, the principle of deferment of judgment and the principle of extended search. Deferral of judgment refers to an individual’s effort at self-expression without censorship of his or her own thoughts, and without criticism of those ideas expressed by others. The second principle seeks to stretch the participants beyond the first, and more automatic or routine ideas to arrive at ideas that have a greater level of originality and at the same time relevance.


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These principles are actualized in the context of a brainstorming meeting or session. The session is given its structure through a moderator or facilitator who seeks to keep the participants following four operating guidelines:

1.

Focus on quantity: This rule is a means of enhancing divergent production, aiming to facilitate problem solving through the maxim, quantity breeds quality. The assumption is that the greater the number of ideas generated, the greater the chance of producing a radical and effective solution.

2.

No criticism: It is often emphasized that in group brainstorming, criticism should be put ‘on hold’. Instead of immediately stating what might be wrong with an idea, the participants focus on extending or adding to it, reserving criticism for a later ‘critical stage’ of the process. By suspending judgment, one creates a supportive atmosphere where participants feel free to generate unusual ideas.

3.

Unusual ideas are welcome: To get a good and long list of ideas, unusual ideas are welcomed. They may open new ways of thinking and provide better solutions than regular ideas. They can be generated by looking from another perspective or setting aside assumptions.

4.

Combine and improve ideas: Good ideas can be combined to form a single very good idea. This approach is assumed to lead to better and more complete ideas than merely generating new ideas alone. It is believed to stimulate the building of ideas by a process of association.

Although brainstorming has become a popular group technique, researchers have generally failed to find evidence of its effectiveness for enhancing either quantity or quality of ideas generated. Because of such problems as distraction, social loafing, evaluation apprehension, and production blocking, brainstorming groups are little more effective than other types of groups, and they are actually less effective than individuals working independently.


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Lateral Thinking Lateral thinking is a term coined by Edward de Bono, a Maltese psychologist, physician and writer. It first appeared in the title of his book The Use of Lateral Thinking, published in 1967. De Bono defines lateral thinking as methods of thinking concerned with changing concepts and perception. Lateral thinking is about reasoning that is not immediately obvious and about ideas that may not be obtainable by using only traditional step-by-step logic. Lateral Thinking is “…a way of thinking which seeks the solution to intractable problems through unorthodox methods, or elements which would normally be ignored by logical thinking.” Edward De Bono differentiates this from vertical thinking, which can be described as traditional, logical thought; vertical thinking looks at a reasonable view of a problem or situation and works through it, generally in a path of least resistance. On the other hand, lateral thinking suggests that the student or problem solver should explore different ways of examining a challenging task, instead of accepting what appears to be the solution with seemingly the most potential and going forward. De Bono is not opposed to vertical thinking; he sees lateral thinking as complementary. An example of a lateral thinking question is: Q: A woman had two sons who were born on the same hour of the same day of the same year. But they were not twins. How could this be so? A: They were two of a set of triplets. De Bono has indicated that the difference between Lateral Thinking and Vertical Thinking can be expressed in several ways: alternatives (think of many ways beyond the obvious approach), non-sequentiality (jump out of the frame of reference or work from several points and link them together), undoing selection processes (think outside of logical progression into pathways that might seem wrong), and attention (a shift in the direct focus of concern). De Bono believes that lateral thinking can be taught directly. He has suggested a number of techniques that can be learned to further lateral thinking: random input from external sources (thus influencing the older relationships), set a fixed allocation of alternative approaches before proceeding with a further step, attention rotation (divides a problem up into parts so that one part does not create monopoly of attention), cross-fertilization (what another person sees may be a fresh and dissimilar approach), reversal of direction (in looking at the question). While some people may be better at or more natural to lateral thinking than others, de Bono points out that this is also true in mathematics or other subjects; people can improve by being taught this concept (directly) and making it into a resident skill. De Bono states that lateral thinking has relations to insight, creativity and humour; the difference is that lateral thinking is meant to lead the way into


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purposeful methods. For example, the concept of humour can be linked to lateral thinking. When someone says something funny, it is because they turn a phrase or we are led down a seemingly normal path but with a very unusual or unexpected end result; yet, humour (by itself) does not put forward ways to resolve a question or issue. Certainly, lateral thinking could be applied to both general and specific applications in all fields (physics, mathematics, political science, social system, education) where we are trying to solve non-rote undertakings (e.g., problems with fuzzy or unknown answers). Lateral thinking would not be helpful in situations of fixed knowledge (e.g., 1+1=2) nor would it be helpful in critical time-constrained problems where the problem solvers are unfamiliar with the lateral thinking concept. De Bono claims that creative thinking is something what can be learnt (or at least improved) by everybody. “Creative thinking is not a talent; it is a skill that can be learnt. It empowers people by adding strength to their natural abilities which improves teamwork, productivity and where appropriate, profits.”


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Aleatory Aleatory means “pertaining to luck”, and derives from the Latin word alea, the rolling of dice. Aleatoric, indeterminate, or chance art is that which exploits the principle of randomness. Randomness is a lack of order, purpose, cause, or predictability. Aleatory, is the introduction of chance elements and it is commonly found in music, literature, particularly in poetry and art. In short, aleatory is a way to introduce new thoughts or ideas into a creative process.

Music Aleatoric music (also aleatory music or chance music); is music in which some element of the composition is left to chance, and/or some primary element of a composed work's realization is left to the determination of its performer(s). Randomness in music is deemed postmodern, including John Cage's chance derived Music of Changes, stochastic music, aleatoric music, indeterminate music, or generative music. The French composer Pierre Boulez was largely responsible for popularizing the term, using it to describe works that give the performer certain liberties with regard to the sequencing and repetition of parts. The term was intended by Boulez to distinguish his work from pieces composed through the application of chance operations by John Cage and Cage's aesthetic of indeterminate music or indeterminacy.

Literature An example of aleatory writing is the automatic writing of the French Surrealists involving dreams, et cetera. The “unexpected” ending is part of the nature of interesting literature. Denis Diderot was a French philosopher and writer and was a prominent figure during the Enlightenment, his major contribution to the Enlightenment being the Encyclopédie. A chief example of randomness in writing is Diderot's novel Jacques le fataliste (literally, James the Fatalist). At one point in the novel, Diderot speaks directly to the reader: Now I, as the author of this novel might have them set upon by thieves, or I might have them rest by a tree until the rain stops, but in fact they kept on walking and then near night-fall they could see the light of an inn in the distance.

Diderot was making the point that the novel (a new invention then) was in fact random (in the sense of being invented out of thin air by the author). Luke Rhinehart's novel The Dice Man tells the story of a psychiatrist named Luke Rhinehart who, feeling bored and unfulfilled in life, starts making decisions about what to do based on a roll of a die (1971). Charles Hartman discusses several methods of automatic generation of poetry in his book The Virtual Muse (1996). However, the French literary group Oulipo (Ouvroir de littérature potentielle, which translates roughly as workshop of potential literature), for example, saw


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no merit in aleatory work and its members altogether eliminated chance and randomness from their writing, substituting potentiality as in Raymond Queneau's Cent Mille Milliards de Poèmes (Hundred Thousand Billion Poems). The book, published in 1961, is inspired by children's picture books in which each page is cut into horizontal strips which can be turned independently, allowing different pictures (usually of people) to be combined in many ways. Queneau applies this technique to poetry: the book contains 10 sonnets, each on a page. Each page is split into 14 strips, one for each line. The author estimates in the introductory explanation that it would take approximately 200 million years to read all possible combinations.

Art A clear example of randomness occurs in the problem of arranging items in an art exhibit. Usually this is avoided by using a theme. As John Cage pointed out, “While there are many ways that sounds might be produced [i.e., in terms of patterns], few are attempted.” Similarly, the arrangement of art in exhibits is often deliberately non-random. One case of this was Hitler's attempt to portray modern art in the worst possible light by arranging works in worst possible manner. A case can be made for trying to make art in the worst possible way; i.e., either as anti-art, or as actually random art. Dadaism¹ as well as many other movements in art have attempted to deal with randomness in various forms. Often people mistake order for randomness based on lack of information; for example, Jackson Pollock's drip paintings and Helen Frankenthaler's abstractions. Thus, in theory of art, all art is random in that it’s “just paint and canvas” (the explanation of Frank Stella's work).² In film-making, there are several avant-garde examples; Andy Voda's Chance Chants (1979) was created completely using various chance operations (coin flip, choosing words out of a hat, rolling dice) in the decision-making for each creative choice. Barry Salt, now better known as a film scholar, is known to have made a film Permutations six reels long which takes the word aleatory quite literally by including a customized die for the projectionist to roll to determine the reel order (720 permutations).

Notes: 1. Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in neutral Zürich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature (poetry, art manifestoes, art theory), theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti war politics through a rejection of the prevailing standards in art through anti-art cultural works. 2. Jackson Pollock, Helen Frankenthaler and Frank Stellar belong to the Abstract Expressionist Movement (a post World War II Art Movement).


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Mural Jackson Pollock, 1943 Oil on canvas 247 x 605 cm University of Iowa Museum of Art


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Improvisation Improvisation is a creative process which can be spoken, written, or composed without prior preparation. Improvisation, also called extemporization, can lead to the discovery of new ways to act, new patterns of thought and practices, or new structures. It is used in the creation of music, theatre, and other various forms. Many artists also use improvisational techniques to help their creative flow. Philosophically, improvisation often focuses on bringing one’s personal awareness into the moment, and on developing a profound understanding for the action one is doing. This fusion of awareness and understanding brings the practitioner to the point where he or she can act with a range of options that best fit the situation, even if he or she has never experienced a similar situation. The mental and emotional states needed to practice the art of improvisation are very similar to the practice taught in the religious and philosophical art of Zen, and many of the same concepts are used in both practices.

Musical Improvisation Musical improvisation is the creative activity of immediate musical composition, which combines performance with communication of emotions and instrumental technique as well as spontaneous response to other musicians. Thus, musical ideas in improvisation are spontaneous, but may be based on chord changes in Western music. Because improvisation is a performative act and depends on instrumental technique, improvisation is a skill. There are musicians who have never improvised and other musicians who have devoted their entire lives to improvisation. Musical improvisers often understand the idiom of one or more musical styles— for example, blues, rock, folk, jazz—and work within the idiom to express ideas with creativity and originality. Improvisation can take place as a solo performance, or interdependently in ensemble with other players. When done well, it often elicits gratifying emotional responses from the audience. Very few musicians have ever dared to offer fully improvised concerts such as the famous improvised piano recitals by classical composers/pianists like Franz Liszt.¹ The origins of Liszt's improvisation in an earlier tradition of playing variations on a theme were mastered and epitomized by Mozart and Beethoven. However, some have managed some very poignant attempts similar to these precedents; one of the most successful of these is Keith Jarrett. He is a jazz pianist and multi-instrumentalist who has performed many completely improvised concerts that have captivated audiences all over the world.

Notes: 1. Franz Liszt (1811-1886) was a Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist and teacher improvisation in the West, have developed a certain fascination for Indian musicians and vice versa.


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Improvisation is one of the basic tenets of jazz. Jazz improvisation is the process of simultaneously creating fresh melodies over the continuously repeating cycle of chord changes of a tune. Composed music and improvised music may seem to be opposites, but in Jazz, they merge in a unique mixture. Wynton Marsalis, an American trumpeter and composer, had said, “In Jazz, improvisation isn’t a matter of making any ol’ thing up. Jazz, like any language, has its own grammar and vocabulary. There’s no right or wrong, just some choices that are better than others.” Indian music is the greatest tradition of improvisation in the East. Therefore it is unsurprising, that Jazz musicians, which have become the greatest exponents of improvisation in the West, have developed a certain fascination for Indian musicians and vice versa. Both Jazz and Indian music are commonly described as improvised music but in fact, composition is integral to both arts. One of the functions of the composition is to define the structure upon which the improvisation is based. Compositions are used mainly as a springboard for improvisation and would probably account for about a tenth of a performance in both traditions. A.R. Rahman, skilled in Carnatic, Hindustani and Western Classical music, has been noted to write film songs that amalgamate elements of these music systems and other genres, layering instruments from differing music idioms in an improvisatory manner. Rahman’s outlook in music stems from his love of experimentation. By virtue of these qualities, broad ranging lyrics and his syncretic style, his themes appeal to several sections of Indian society. Baz Luhrmann, an Oscar and Golden Globe-nominated Australian film director, screenwriter and producer notes, I had come to the music of A. R. Rahman through the emotional and haunting score of Bombay and the wit and celebration of Lagaan. But the more of A.R.'s music I encountered the more I was to be amazed at the sheer diversity of styles: from swinging brass bands to triumphant anthems; from joyous pop to West-End musicals. Whatever the style, A. R. Rahman's music always possesses a profound sense of humanity and spirit, qualities that inspire me the most.

Improvisational Theatre Improvisational theatre (also known as improv or impro) is a form of theatre in which the actors use improvisational acting techniques to perform spontaneously. Actors typically use audience suggestions to guide the performance as they create dialogue, setting, and plot extemporaneously. Many improvisational actors also work as scripted actors, and improv techniques are often taught in standard acting classes. The basic skills of listening, clarity, confidence, and performing instinctively and spontaneously are considered important skills for actors to develop. Modern improvisational comedy, as it is practiced in the West, falls generally into two categories: shortform and longform.


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Shortform improv consists of short scenes usually constructed from a predetermined game, structure, or idea and driven by an audience suggestion. Many shortform games were first created by Viola Spolin, who was an American drama teacher and author. She is considered by many to be the American Grandmother of Improvisation. Longform improv performers create shows in which scenes are often interrelated by story, characters, or themes. Longform shows may take the form of an existing type of theatre, for example a full-length play or Broadwaystyle musical such as Spontaneous Broadway. Many silent filmmakers such as Charlie Chaplin used improvisation in the making of their films, developing their gags while filming and altering the plot to fit. The Marx Brothers were notorious for deviating from the script they were given, their ad libs (ad libitum: literally, at one’s pleasure) often becoming part of the standard routine and making their way into their films.

Singing Improvisation Singing improvisation is an ancient art form. It is a mixture of musical improvisation and improvisational theater. A singer makes up the words and melody to a song at the same time the musicians are making up the music to the song. Additionally, aspects of dance, comedy and showmanship are all part of the singing improviser's repertoire. Centuries ago in Wales, there was an annual competition for poets and musicians that featured improvised singing. It was sung in the style of music called a penillion, which is defined as “Welsh songs, often improvised, and sung to a harp accompaniment.” Harpist John Parry, father of John Orlando Parry¹, described this art: “(...) the singer is obliged to follow the harper, who may change the tune, or perform variations, ad libitum, whilst the vocalist must keep time, and end precisely with the strain…” Beginning in the late 1800s, thousands of years of folk singing and popular music were changed forever; this happened because of the printing of popular music and the impact of the record player. Prior to the record player, popular music, “music of the people”, was largely improvised. It was extremely common for people who sang songs to change the lyrics whenever they sang them. They would change parts of the song to adapt it to whatever was going on at the moment or to play to the next audience they faced. Since people mostly learned songs by hearing them and remembering them, the “improvising” of lyrics and melody was quite common amongst the populace.

Notes: 1.

John Orlando Parry (1810–1879) was a Welsh actor, pianist, artist, comedian and singer.


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Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art is a book written by Stephen Nachmanovitch and originally published in 1990. Free Play is the creative activity of spontaneous free improvisation, by children, by artists, and people of all kinds. This book reflects the experience of an improvisational violinist as a doorway into understanding the acts of creation in which every human being engages in his or her daily life. Improvisation and creativity are not the property of a few professional artists or scientists but the essence of all our natural, spontaneous interactions. Every conversation is unrehearsed and reflects the activity of improvising as a basic life function. From the opening of the first chapter: There is an old Sanskrit word, Lila (Leela), which means play. Richer than our word, it means divine play, the play of creation and destruction and re-creation, the folding and unfolding of the cosmos. Lila, free and deep, is both delight and enjoyment of this moment, and the play of God. It also means love. Lila may be the simplest thing there is---spontaneous, childish, disarming. But as we grow and experience the complexities of life, it may also be the most difficult and hard won achievement imaginable and it's coming to fruition is a kind of homecoming to our true selves.


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Conclusion The objective of this Paper was to make a detailed analysis of the concept of creativity and associate it, wherever possible, to the three fields of study. The sections of the Paper have viewed the major studies and research materials on creativity over the years. The examination of the thoughts, theories, concepts and techniques within the realm of study has hoped to determine a clearer view of the subjectivity of creativity. The Paper is a personal analysis of creativity with examples that I think are most suitable and apt. It has been determined through a process of detailed selection to include the illustrations that fit most appropriately in the context of study. Again, as mentioned at the start, creativity for one may amount to dull thought for another. Creativity has the dual qualities of being universal and individualistic at the same time. The expression of creativity through music, art and literature has attempted to provide more information about creative thought and its association with numerous other terms and theories. The research on creativity, its influences, motives and purpose, is only beginning. This Paper hopes to be a step further in the same direction.

“Genius is infinite painstaking.” - Michelangelo


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Bibliography The following Journal Articles were referenced from:

• Adarves-Yorno, I., Postmes, T. and Haslam, S.A. (2007). Creative innovation

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