“On being a Flat-Earther”, an edited excerpt from Chapter 10 of my book “Fresh Perspectives on Creativity”
A flat-earther is someone who insists that the earth is flat and who is likely to be derided for holding such a factually ignorant view. In this post, at the risk of being laughed at, I claim to be a flat-earther myself. A theme of this chapter is that any starting point, however far-fetched, can lead to creative outcomes, as is proved my the many artists who have painted masterpieces on the basis of crack-brain ideas. My purpose in this post is to emphasise two points, made throughout this chapter, namely that investigating alternative descriptions can unblock stagnant thought-processes and liberate creativity and that they can do it whether the alternatives are sensible or absurd. It is a thought-provoking idea, which is worth expanding on. So here goes: Continue reading “Why I am a Flat-Earther”
In the coming months I intend to contribute many posts on the subject of “creativity”. As most of these will be taken from my book “Fresh Insights into Creativity“, it seems appropriate to start with an excerpt from its “Introduction” :
Excerpt from the introduction to “Fresh insights into Creativity”
A need to understand the nature of ‘creativity‘ has been with me since I was a teenager. This volume is the fruit of a lifetime’s search for answers to questions relating to this subject. For those who wish to go deeper into the ideas on offer, I have written three other books. Two of these provide practical help for people seeking to improve their artistic skills. The third is a scientific book. This describes the research and the ideas emerging from it that are largely responsible for the originality of the other three books. The science concerns how the brain, first, makes sense of and, then, makes use of the patterns of light that enters the eyes. Their titles are: “Drawing on Both sides of the Brain”, “Painting with Light and Colour” and “What Scientists can Learn from Artists”.
An unexpected development
I was fifteen years into my life as a practicing artist and occasional teacher of drawing and painting when, quite unexpectedly, despite my lack of relevant background as a scientist, I was offered an opportunity to become involved in scientific research. After some hesitation, I seized it in the hope that the scientific method might help me make sense of a range of painting, drawing and teaching related questions to which I had been seeking answers in vain.
I hope you enjoy the attachment below, which is about the accuracy versus expression debate. It is the first chapter of my book “Drawing on the right Side of the Brain“, in which I compare the expressive potential of searching for accuracy relative to that of other artistic goals that lead to different manifestations of inaccuracy, whether it be in the guise of distortions, abstractions or any other kind of deviation from accuracy. My conclusion is that not only art history but also the outcomes of my experience as a teacher, as illustrated by the work of my students, show that both have the potential to inspire artistic creativity. The drawing of Durer’s Mother below is one of the six illustrations in the chapter, three of which provide examples of the expressive potential of the search for accuracy, while the remainder provide examples of the expressive potential of researching deviations from it.
My first fresh perspective is an extract from Chapter 10 : “Having Fun with Creativity”. It tells the story of a painting made by a primary school child with learning difficulties
The Potato
It is always the case that a great deal of what goes into paintings is hidden and, with it, much of what has been put into them. This point that can be clarified by means of a true story relating to a child with learning difficulties told by his primary school teacher.
George, as I shall call him, was an amiable lad, but never seemed to want to join in what others were doing. One day, during a painting session, the teacher was delighted to see him applying himself with great concentration. She hurried over to see what had caught his imagination and found that he had produced a light-brown oval shape in the middle of an otherwise empty sheet of paper. He was obviously pleased to see her and held up what he had done asking with pride in his voice, “Do you like my potato, Miss?” In itself, George’s production wasn’t very impressive but, sensing an opportunity for a breakthrough in his attitude to school, she enthused about it, suggesting, before leaving him, that he complete the picture.
Request for comments on the chapters from the books.
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A fast Drawing by Auguste Rodin, a pupil and lifelong admirer of the teaching of Horace Lecoq Boisbaudran
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Drawing by Edgar Degas, a close friend of Alphonse Legros, star pupil of Horace Lecoq Boisbaudran, who widely shared his understanding of his teacher’s teaching method and ideas.
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Horace Lecoq Boisbaudran came to my notice in 2014. In later posts I will be saying more about him. In brief, I was amazed and gratified to find that the research upon which he based his teaching has more in common with my research than anything else I have come across. Although the exercises he proposed differed in many details from the ones that I suggest in my books, we have in common the idea that training the memory requires rigorous exploration of the unvarying uniqueness in the appearance of every object. Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran’s pupil Alphonse Legros, who actively promoted his teacher’s ideas, became a close friend of Edgar Degas. It may therefore be no coincidence that it was he who provided the best synthesis of Horace Lecoq Boisbaudran’s philosophy that I know:
“It is all very well to copy what you see; it is much better to draw what you only see in memory. There is a transformation during which the imagination works in conjunction with the memory. You only put down what made an impression on you, that is to say the essential. Then your memory and your invention are freed from the dominating influence of nature. That is why pictures made by a man with a trained memory, who knows thoroughly both the masters and his own craft, are almost always remarkable works; for instance Delacroix.
Where my teaching is substantially different from that of Horace Lecoq Boisbaudran is the emphasis I put on training the “feel system“.
Meanwhile here is an extract from the “Glossary” to “Drawing on Both Sides of the Brain” that provides an introduction to his ideas and his influence. I have also added the entry for Alphonse Legros, described as his star pupil, who had great success in spreading his ideas to both his own generation and the following ones.
Click below for a contribution to the accuracy versus expression debate. It is the first chapter of my book “Drawing on Both Sides of the Brain” which is made up of two volumes: “Drawing with Feeling” and “Drawing with Knowledge”. The drawing of Durer’s Mother below is one of the six illustrations in the chapter used to illustrate the expressive potential of the accuracy aspiration. Please enjoy.
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