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.
Review:
... David Galenson has developed something approaching a unified theory of art . . . [that] does a surprisingly good job of explaining the relative value of the world's great paintings. . . . While Mr. Galenson has been studying the art world over the last five years, all sorts of other fields have been engaged in their own debate about judgment versus rules. . . . When the traditionalists in these fields describe their skepticism of statistics, they sometimes make the argument that their craft is as much art as it is science. That's a nice line, but the next time you hear it, think back to Mr. Galenson's work. Even art, it turns out, has a good bit of science to it. David Leonhardt(The New York Times)
... An intriguing book. (The Age)
Table of contents:
List of Illustrations and Tables ix
Preface xi
INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER 1: Theory 4
Experimental and Conceptual Innovators 4
Archetypes 5
Planning, Working, and Stopping 11
Innovation and Age: Old Masters and Young Geniuses 14
Artists, Scholars, and Art Scholars 15
CHAPTER 2: Measurement 21
Quantifying Artistic Success 21
Prices 21
Textbook Illustrations 25
Examples: Ten Important Modern Painters 27
Retrospective Exhibitions 33
Examples: Ten Important American Painters 35
Museum Collections 40
Museum Exhibition 42
Measuring Careers 44
CHAPTER 3: Extensions 47
The Spectrum of Approaches 47
Can Artists Change? 56
Anomalies 61
CHAPTER 4: Implications 67
Masters and Masterpieces 67
The Impressionists'Challenge to the Salon 71
Masterpieces without Masters 73
Contrasting Careers 80
Conflicts 82
The Globalization of Modern Art 86
CHAPTER 5: Before Modern Art 94
CHAPTER 6: Beyond Painting 111
Sculptors 111
Poets 122
Novelists 134
Movie Directors 149
CHAPTER 7: Perspectives 162
Portraits of the Artist as an Experimental or Conceptual Innovator 162
Portraits of the Artist as a Young or Old Innovator 166
Psychologists on the Life Cycles of Creativity 171
Understanding and Increasing Creativity 177
Seekers and Finders 185
Notes 187
Bibliography 207
Index 223
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.
Review:
... David Galenson has developed something approaching a unified theory of art . . . [that] does a surprisingly good job of explaining the relative value of the world's great paintings. . . . While Mr. Galenson has been studying the art world over the last five years, all sorts of other fields have been engaged in their own debate about judgment versus rules. . . . When the traditionalists in these fields describe their skepticism of statistics, they sometimes make the argument that their craft is as much art as it is science. That's a nice line, but the next time you hear it, think back to Mr. Galenson's work. Even art, it turns out, has a good bit of science to it. David Leonhardt(The New York Times)
... An intriguing book. (The Age)
Table of contents:
List of Illustrations and Tables ix
Preface xi
INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER 1: Theory 4
Experimental and Conceptual Innovators 4
Archetypes 5
Planning, Working, and Stopping 11
Innovation and Age: Old Masters and Young Geniuses 14
Artists, Scholars, and Art Scholars 15
CHAPTER 2: Measurement 21
Quantifying Artistic Success 21
Prices 21
Textbook Illustrations 25
Examples: Ten Important Modern Painters 27
Retrospective Exhibitions 33
Examples: Ten Important American Painters 35
Museum Collections 40
Museum Exhibition 42
Measuring Careers 44
CHAPTER 3: Extensions 47
The Spectrum of Approaches 47
Can Artists Change? 56
Anomalies 61
CHAPTER 4: Implications 67
Masters and Masterpieces 67
The Impressionists'Challenge to the Salon 71
Masterpieces without Masters 73
Contrasting Careers 80
Conflicts 82
The Globalization of Modern Art 86
CHAPTER 5: Before Modern Art 94
CHAPTER 6: Beyond Painting 111
Sculptors 111
Poets 122
Novelists 134
Movie Directors 149
CHAPTER 7: Perspectives 162
Portraits of the Artist as an Experimental or Conceptual Innovator 162
Portraits of the Artist as a Young or Old Innovator 166
Psychologists on the Life Cycles of Creativity 171
Understanding and Increasing Creativity 177
Seekers and Finders 185
Notes 187
Bibliography 207
Index 223