thoughts on creativity

If you have not already read Modern Times or Intellectuals, I suggest that you do so right away. Paul Johnson is one of the more fascinating historians that I have read (although, granted, I have not read tons of history books), and right now I’m in the middle of Creators, one of his most recent offerings. It was written as a reply to Intellectuals, in which he defines an intellectual as “someone who thinks ideas are more important than people” (1). After some expressed frustration with that book, calling it mean-spirited, Johnson responded with Creators: a book which discusses “men and women of outstanding originality” (1). A few quotes on creativity for you:

I sometimes talk to a jovial sweeper, who does my street, and who comes from Isfahan, in Persia, wherein lies the grandest and most beautiful square in the world, the work of many architects and craftsmen over the centuries, but chiefly of the sixteenth. I asked him if he felt himself creative, and he said: “Oh, yes. Each day, they give me a dirty street, and I make it into a clean one, thanks be to God.” People do not always discern the creative element in their lives and work. But those who do are more likely to be happy (3-4).

Creation is always difficult. If it is worth doing at all, we can be sure it is hard to do (11).

[on Shakespeare] As for the public, Shakespeare was adept at appealing to both the elite and the “vulgar” or “groundlings” in the same play. Still (as the scene in which Hamlet instructs the players indicates), he was striving to improve the public taste, especially in acting. Like all the greatest artists, he created his own public, teaching the audience to appreciate what he had to offer, and he left the theater a much more subtle and sophisticated world than he found it (53).

[on Bach] As in many of Shakespeare’s plays, there was an element of chance and haphazard opportunities in Bach’s music. It exemplifies a point I have come across again and again in studying the history of great works of creations: a deliberate plan is not always necessary for the highest art; it emerges (92).