What's the difference between an artist and a person who is creative..?!


Question: ~thank you~


RoChEr


Answers: ~thank you~


RoChEr

This is at once a highly profound AND somewhat disturbing question (at least for some of us in the scientific community). We all assume creativity to be the prerequisite for "Creative Work" (in any field of endeavor - be it the arts, the sciences, or what have you). But there is always that nagging underlying conundrum of "inevitability" that ANY creative work must be measured against. The inevitability argument basically centers around the claim that while scientific theories are inevitable, artistic creations are not. Perhaps the problem can best be visualized using the following remark by Einstein: "... even had Newton or Leibniz never lived, the world would have had the calculus, but that if Beethoven had not lived, we would never have had the C-Minor Symphony".

Kant, for instance, contends that genius exists in the arts but not in the sciences, since "Newton could show how he took every one of the steps he had to take to get from the first elements of geometry to his great and profound discoveries, not only to himself but to everyone else as well, in an intuitive way, allowing others to follow." According to Kant this is not the case with Homer and other great poets: “ [since] one cannot learn to write inspired poetry, however elaborate all the precepts of this art may be, and however superb its models."

Needless to say, many of us beg to differ with Kant. After all, as people like Owen Gingerich have pointed out: "The synthesis of knowledge achieved in a major scientific theory is not fully the same as the ordering of the components in an artistic composition. A scientific theory is constrained by nature, and is subject to experimentation, extension, and falsification. Scientific achievements can be legitimately and even inevitably paraphrased in ways that artistic works cannot. And the way that science progresses is very different from the arts.” In short: Though one cannot compare apples and oranges, one must opt more in favor of analogy/comparison than contrast. Gingerich further argues that, scientific achievements are NOT inevitable since alternative explanations can be derived from parallel/independent lines of reasoning, hence highlighting the role of imagination, creativity, insight, and above all the singular nature of the scientific achievement.

A well-devised and non-inevitable scientific exprement with no a priori rule that might eventually bring about order out of apparent chaos, is one place, for instance, where even Kant would be hardpressed not to award creative scientific work its due “genius” status. And then, of course, there is also the matter of the absolute singularity of theoretical predictions - original insights into the ultimate nature of the physical universe beyond its immediately observable state - the validity of which many a clever experiments are specifically designed to verify.

And finally, I think there is the issue of inherent value (e.g. aesthetics, personal enrichment, etc.) and applicability (e.g. technological advances, life-saving medical applications, etc.) of the underlying creative work. … Genius/creative work for the sake of genius/creative work is one thing; genius/creative work at work for the advancement/enlightenment of the human condition/race is an altogether a different ball game – one cannot be a genius in one’s own mind.

… But above all, what is creativity/genius without a humorous sense of wonder – isn’t that [and a few well placed genes perhaps] what makes a “polymath” (i.e. a well-rounded genius, gifted in many areas) after all? Listen to what Newton himself had to say:

“If I have been able to see further, it was only because I stood on the shoulders of giants.”
Letter to Robert Hooke

“I know not what I appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell, whilest the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”
Quoted in D Brewster, Memoirs of Newton
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LOL- summary judgment!

I was just about to post an answer that said, “Whatever ^he^ said.” :-) Report It

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QT - LOL LOL; I share my honors and stars with you, any day.

Thank you RoChEr for a great question. Report It


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  • A creative person could also be said to be inventive. They create practical things.

    an artist uses his/her creativity on arts, but someone who is creative may use it on other subjects

    a creative person isn't necessarily an artist. someone creative may be good at solving problems with a different kind of solution than usual.

    no difference , u have to be creative to be an artist.

    one is a full timer and one is a part timer.

    They are both the same in that to be creative one must have imagination, be inventive and original. To be artistic, as in Picasso, one must also have imagination but also be able to make something elegant or aesthetically attractive. They can be one in the same in my opinion. Great question!

    artist is 1 who expresses his vision by creating,practising or demonstrating art!!
    while a creative person also creates,practises n demonstrates art but with anything n everything available around!!!

    I am very creative yet have difficulty producing. I see things in my head but I do not know how to put A and B together.
    So I would say I am creative but not an artist.



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