Old Masters and Young Geniuses: The Two Life Cycles of Artistic Creativity
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Editorial Reviews:
When in their lives do great artists produce their greatest art? Do they strive for creative perfection throughout decades of painstaking and frustrating experimentation, or do they achieve it confidently and decisively, through meticulous planning that yields masterpieces early in their lives?
By examining the careers not only of great painters but also of important sculptors, poets, novelists, and movie directors, Old Masters and Young Geniuses offers a profound new understanding of artistic creativity. Using a wide range of evidence, David Galenson demonstrates that there are two fundamentally different approaches to innovation, and that each is associated with a distinct pattern of discovery over a lifetime.
Experimental innovators work by trial and error, and arrive at their major contributions gradually, late in life. In contrast, conceptual innovators make sudden breakthroughs by formulating new ideas, usually at an early age. Galenson shows why such artists as Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Cézanne, Jackson Pollock, Virginia Woolf, Robert Frost, and Alfred Hitchcock were experimental old masters, and why Vermeer, van Gogh, Picasso, Herman Melville, James Joyce, Sylvia Plath, and Orson Welles were conceptual young geniuses. He also explains how this changes our understanding of art and its past.
Experimental innovators seek, and conceptual innovators find. By illuminating the differences between them, this pioneering book provides vivid new insights into the mysterious processes of human creativity.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
Customer Rating:
Summary: Very Useful Analysis
Comment: I've shared Galenson's inciteful analysis with many friends; some of them artists, some of them dealers or other professionals in the field, some of them, like me, just interested in art.
Well-written, clearly organized and thought-provoking, "Old Masters and Young Geniuses" increased my understanding of the creative process and how it differs among artists. Highly recommended.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Clarifying 2 Modes of Artistic Creativity.
Comment: This book would be of interest to artists and collectors. Enjoy. I couldn't put it down.
Customer Rating:
Summary: valuable contribution
Comment: As a creative artists who moves in slow incremental steps-searching, exploring, and experimenting-, I am much gratified to have Galenson's positive take on my plodding nature. It is the unknown that draws me forward (the experimental), not the laborious execution of a well thought-out scheme (the conceptual).
I have studied art and art history my entire life and Galenson has given me my first ever clear understanding of 'conceptual' art. I realize now that my own methods have little in common with most conceptual artists, much more in common with the 'experimental' artists of which he writes.
I find it quite refreshing and commendable that an Economics professor who comes from outside the insular field of art has delved so successfully into the minds of artists. Shouldn'd we all take more than a moment to step outside our own fields, get a fresh perspective on the world around us, and thus, on ourselves?
Kudos to professor Galenson for doing such a fine job of expanding our understanding of the creative mind, and for taking the risk to have a look from the outside.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A new perspective
Comment: Dr. Galenson takes up an aspect of creativity that I have not encountered before: what accounts for the timing of an artist's success within his own developmental cycle. His explanation for the division he makes is persuasive both intellectually and on the basis of the data he presents. Having said that, his dualism arouses my distrust. I was hoping he might have more to say about an artist's development over time. Why do some artist's peak early and others ripen, apart from the nature of their innovation? Can old masters be geniuses too? Are there art forms that require mature development for success? What role does an artist's character play in the curve of his development? Perhaps I expected too much in one book. As a writer on the psychology of creativity, I am glad to have read this book.
Gregory T. Lombardo, MD, PhD.
Technical Details
Binding: HardcoverDewey Decimal Number: 700.19
EAN: 9780691121093
ISBN: 0691121095
Label: Princeton University Press
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 256
Publication Date: 2005-12-27
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Studio: Princeton University Press
