Creativity and Individualism

Creativity, most art scholars have argued, is a necessary element of art (Alexander 1990; Joyce 1976); some even argue it is a "human need" or "biological predisposition" (Dissanayake 1992: 82). The dictionary defines creativity as “resulting from originality of thought, expression” (p. 341). Creativity, objectively, refers to "deviating from the expected order" (Dissanayake 1991:82), or, in a word, innovation, identifiable change. While many people today see creativity as a necessary characteristic of visual art, Gombrich (1992:119), the art historian, argued that

our modern notion that an artist must be ‘original,’ was by no means shared by most people in the past. An Egyptian, a Chinese, or a Byzantine master would have been greatly puzzled by such a demand. Nor would a medieval artist of Western Europe have understood why he should invent new ways of planning a church, a designing a chalice, or of representing the sacred story when the old ones served the purpose so well.

“The lust for otherness, for newness,’ Bernard Berenson (1848: 155) wrote in his book Aesthetics and History, may seem to be the most natural and matter-of-course thing in the world; however, this lust for newness is neither ancient nor universal. In fact, he wrote,

Prehistoric races are credited with having had so little of it that a change in artifacts is assumed to be a change in populations, one following another. The same holds for the peoples of relatively recent or quite recent date like the Peruvians and the Mayas and Aztecs as well as the African and Oceanic tribes. Even people so civilized as the Egyptians changed so little in three thousand years that it takes training to distinguish a Saitic sculpture from one of the early dynasties. In Mesopotamia also change was slow. But for Alexander’s conquest, there might have been almost no newness in India, and but for the Buddhist missionaries as little in China. Why was there so little craving for novelty everywhere on earth?

It is important to take a moment here to explain that the words like traditional art, or conservative style, or ethnographic art, \ when used to refer to visual art, do not imply that the visual art will be simple or plain. The visual arts of China and Egypt, along with those produced in many parts of the world, were traditional; most would agree that they are attractive (some might prefer the words aesthetically pleasing). This visual art, however, was not creative in the sense of constantly changing or being highly innovative. Magnificent works of art have been produced without creativity and the artistic freedom that creativity implies. According to Hauser (1959: 29), “some of the most magnificent works of art originated…in the Ancient Orient under the most dire pressure imaginable [this proves] that there is no direct relationship between personal freedom of the artists and the aesthetic quality of his works.” Artists in traditional societies, in one important sense, are not merely individuals, they are links in a chain going back into the distant past and leading on into the future.

What creativity seems to imply is individualism, or behavior focused on oneself. This practice of using visual art to attract attention to oneself, as I have pointed out earlier, is fairly rare. Among traditional people, Hauser (1959:74) writes, one cannot find

an individual style or personal ideals or ambitions -- at any rate, there is no sign whatsoever that the artist cherished any feelings of this sort.  Soliloquies such as the poems of Archilochus or Sappho…the claim to be distinguished from all other artists which is advanced by Aristonothos, attempts to say something already said in a different, though not necessarily better fashion -- all this is quite new and heralds a development which now proceeds without a setback (apart from the early Middle Ages) to the present day.

In Africa, after many traditions had been lost, the Luba carvers referred to as the Buli Master and the Master of the Cascade Hairdo appeared (Vogel 1993). These carvers were recognized by the uniqueness of their art. 

Anthropologists recognized long ago that technical mastery was recognized and appreciated. “Even in the rudest societies,” Lowie (1940: 107) insisted, “some individuals greatly excel the rest in manual skill so that the most difficult tasks are entrusted to them.” Technical mastery, while not ignored, was not in any obvious way capitalized upon by the technical master. The great painters in China, Kriz & Kurz (1979: 114) explained, “do not seek honors and wealth, they avoid the climate of the court, and they give away their pictures.” Skill, rather than freeing a talented person, seems to present him or her with more obligations. Those who have mastered techniques not only have to make their own visual art objects, but they also have to help others make theirs. Further, technically well-made objects, as Weissner (1984: 204) has pointed out, communicate not only skill, but also the diligence, caring, and hard work of the artist. As techniques are a gift from ancestors to descendants, as well as a gift given to ancestors by descendants, diligence is a sign of respect for ancestors. To produce carelessly-made art is to disrespect the ancestors.

Our interest in and appreciation of the exotic behavior of many contemporary artists, who are artistic iconoclasts and seem to use their lifestyle to sell their work, does not mean that artists who are not exotic are not interesting, or without passion, or that they produce art that is not attractive. Tonkinson (1978), when discussing the individual behavior of the Mardujara, writes that while most adults were interesting and agreeable people of pleasant disposition, both sexes had a capacity for rapid and passionate arousal of emotions to a violent pitch. The emotions seen most often were anger or sorrow.

“Antisocial and excessive behaviors,” Tonkinson writes, are rare. They occur, he claims, “for a variety of possible underlying reasons: imperfect socialization, excessive egotism, madness, loss of control, quirks of personality, poorly controlled temper, and so on” (p. 121). For the Madujara, emotions that are likely to lead people into breaking ancestral law (e.g., strong dislike, egotism, covetousness, unbridled sexuality, malicious gossip) must be kept under control. Individuals who break ancestral law, Tonkinson writes, are held fully responsible for such acts. It is ironic perhaps, that characteristics seen as antisocial by the Aborigines (e.g., excessive egotism, poorly controlled temper, madness, quirks of personality), have been seen, on and off at least since the Renaissance, as evidence of artistic genius. In such a case, the artist him or herself  becomes that art - that which attracts and holds attention.