Neuroscience
The July 2006 issue of Wired has a great article called What Kind of Genius Are You?. Daniel Pink discusses University of Chicago economist David Galenson, who studies geniuses in art and devised a theory suggesting "that creativity comes in two distinct types – quick and dramatic, or careful and quiet."
Essentially, Galenson argues that genius "comes in two very different forms, embodied by two very different types of people. 'Conceptual innovators,' as Galenson calls them, make bold, dramatic leaps in their disciplines. They do their breakthrough work when they are young. Think Edvard Munch, Herman Melville, and Orson Welles. They make the rest of us feel like also-rans. Then there’s a second character type, someone who’s just as significant but trudging by comparison. Galenson calls this group 'experimental innovators.' Geniuses like Auguste Rodin, Mark Twain, and Alfred Hitchcock proceed by a lifetime of trial and error and thus do their important work much later in their careers."
How did he make this assertion? He studied the relationship of an artist's age with his success as measured by the appearance of illustrations in art history textbooks and created an age / image frequency regression. He found that "Some artists were represented by dozens of pieces created in their twenties and thirties but relatively few thereafter. For other artists, the reverse was true."
Fascinating! Also love this quote: "Galenson, a classic library rat, began reading biographies of the artists and accounts by art critics to add some qualitative meat to these quantitative bones." (emphasis mine).
Gives some of us old-timers a wee bit of hope ...
What Kind of Genius Are You?
By Daniel H. Pink
Wired Magazine, July 2006
A new theory suggests that creativity comes in two distinct types – quick and dramatic, or careful and quiet.
- Blood Flow And Art
Quinn's blood head (above image from artnet.com) is part of a collection of Lego recreations of major moments in contemporary fine art history by The Little Artists. It features Marc Quinn's sculpture Self, famous as the "blood head." Made with...
- Would The Jazz Greats Have Been So Great Without Drugs?
"I think that trumpets and drugs have always gone hand in hand," Mark Ronson speaking on Never Mind the Buzzcocks, December 07. Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, Lester Young, John Coltrane - the list of jazz greats who battled drug and alcohol addiction...
- Virile Artists To Blame For Schizophrenia's Prevalence?
Artists and poets who have an embryonic form of schizophrenia called ‘schizotypy’ are responsible for the illness not dying out despite the fact that people with full-blown schizophrenia are far less likely to have children than healthy people. That’s...
- Looking For An Interesting Elective Course For Summer? Give This Art History Course A Try!
SUMMER ART HISTORY COURSE ANNOUNCEMENT ARTH 346: Nineteenth-Century European Art from 1850 Summer Session I: May 28, 2013 - July 7, 2013, Mondays and Wednesdays, 4:30 – 8:00 pm The late-nineteenth century was a dramatic time filled with rapid...
- Looking For A Core Advanced Studies Course That Intersects With Psychology? Register For Arth 346 Summer Session Ii!
ARTH 346: Nineteenth-Century European Art from 1850 Summer Session II: July 9 – August 19 Monday through Friday, 10:00-11:20am The late-nineteenth century was a dramatic time filled with rapid changes in politics, science, and social theory, and...
Neuroscience
Geniuses, part deux
The July 2006 issue of Wired has a great article called What Kind of Genius Are You?. Daniel Pink discusses University of Chicago economist David Galenson, who studies geniuses in art and devised a theory suggesting "that creativity comes in two distinct types – quick and dramatic, or careful and quiet."
Essentially, Galenson argues that genius "comes in two very different forms, embodied by two very different types of people. 'Conceptual innovators,' as Galenson calls them, make bold, dramatic leaps in their disciplines. They do their breakthrough work when they are young. Think Edvard Munch, Herman Melville, and Orson Welles. They make the rest of us feel like also-rans. Then there’s a second character type, someone who’s just as significant but trudging by comparison. Galenson calls this group 'experimental innovators.' Geniuses like Auguste Rodin, Mark Twain, and Alfred Hitchcock proceed by a lifetime of trial and error and thus do their important work much later in their careers."
How did he make this assertion? He studied the relationship of an artist's age with his success as measured by the appearance of illustrations in art history textbooks and created an age / image frequency regression. He found that "Some artists were represented by dozens of pieces created in their twenties and thirties but relatively few thereafter. For other artists, the reverse was true."
Fascinating! Also love this quote: "Galenson, a classic library rat, began reading biographies of the artists and accounts by art critics to add some qualitative meat to these quantitative bones." (emphasis mine).
Gives some of us old-timers a wee bit of hope ...
What Kind of Genius Are You?
By Daniel H. Pink
Wired Magazine, July 2006
A new theory suggests that creativity comes in two distinct types – quick and dramatic, or careful and quiet.
- Blood Flow And Art
Quinn's blood head (above image from artnet.com) is part of a collection of Lego recreations of major moments in contemporary fine art history by The Little Artists. It features Marc Quinn's sculpture Self, famous as the "blood head." Made with...
- Would The Jazz Greats Have Been So Great Without Drugs?
"I think that trumpets and drugs have always gone hand in hand," Mark Ronson speaking on Never Mind the Buzzcocks, December 07. Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, Lester Young, John Coltrane - the list of jazz greats who battled drug and alcohol addiction...
- Virile Artists To Blame For Schizophrenia's Prevalence?
Artists and poets who have an embryonic form of schizophrenia called ‘schizotypy’ are responsible for the illness not dying out despite the fact that people with full-blown schizophrenia are far less likely to have children than healthy people. That’s...
- Looking For An Interesting Elective Course For Summer? Give This Art History Course A Try!
SUMMER ART HISTORY COURSE ANNOUNCEMENT ARTH 346: Nineteenth-Century European Art from 1850 Summer Session I: May 28, 2013 - July 7, 2013, Mondays and Wednesdays, 4:30 – 8:00 pm The late-nineteenth century was a dramatic time filled with rapid...
- Looking For A Core Advanced Studies Course That Intersects With Psychology? Register For Arth 346 Summer Session Ii!
ARTH 346: Nineteenth-Century European Art from 1850 Summer Session II: July 9 – August 19 Monday through Friday, 10:00-11:20am The late-nineteenth century was a dramatic time filled with rapid changes in politics, science, and social theory, and...