

How You Can Be Creative – A Lesson from Pablo Picasso - lionhearted
http://www.sebastianmarshall.com/how-you-can-be-creative-a-lesson-from-pablo-picasso

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gruseom
I doubt that Picasso said "Every child is an artist. The problem is how to
remain an artist when we grow up," first because a little googling reveals no
source for it (other than the usual spam sites), second because this is a
popular post-1960s belief about children (the kind of thing Picasso's
generation was unlikely to say, but that later generations would eagerly
attribute to $arbitrary_great_artist), and third because from what little I
know about Picasso's ego it seems unlikely that he would distribute the status
of artist so equitably. So I think this quote should be put in the category of
bullshit-till-proven-authentic.

It would be fitting if it were bullshit, since it motivates an argument that
all anyone had to do in 1907 was decide to paint a few whores and they'd end
up with this: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Demoiselles_d%27Avignon>.

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cookingrobot
Picasso was alive and active until 1973 - so he might be more contemporary
than you're thinking. One of my favorite quotes of his is "Computers are
useless. They can only give you answers."

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gruseom
There's no evidence he said that one either.

<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pablo_Picasso>

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cookingrobot
Agreed. Quotes seem hard to perfectly attribute. I imagine a lot of quotes are
retold and repeated verbally a few times before being written down, so I
suppose there's lots of room for errors.

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gjm11
What?

I mean, seriously, _what_?

The article seriously advances the following thesis: Creativity is basically
easy; you just take something other people are already doing and make
incremental changes; for instance, when Picasso painted _Les demoiselles
d'Avignon_ all he did was to paint a typical nude portrait except that he
changed a few things. A prostitute instead of a standard Noble Classical
Figure. A group of them instead of just one. ... Oh, yeah, and among those
little incremental changes was inventing a completely new style of painting.

This is, to use the article's own term, _complete bullshit_. Deciding to take
something and make a bunch of incremental changes is easy. Finding a bunch of
incremental changes that (1) amount to something really new and (2) still
manage to produce something _good_ \-- that's what's difficult.

What made Picasso famous for his creativity wasn't the fact that he made a
bunch of incremental changes. It's that he spotted some things to change that
other people hadn't thought of changing (e.g., you could say that the step
from "show everything from a single perspective, or at least make it look as
if you're doing so" to "use a variety of radically different perspectives to
show objects from multiple viewpoints and produce a sense of fragmentation" is
just a matter of Changing One Thing -- but who'd ever considered that as a
Thing that could be Changed, before the cubists came along?) and that he was
able to produce compelling paintings despite making those radical changes.

(I don't disagree with everything in the article. In particular, the idea that
you shouldn't ever reinvent the wheel is just as ridiculous as the article
says. But the alleged recipe for creativity is silly, and the alleged example
of how it works is beyond preposterous.)

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ajkessler
>> _Finding a bunch of incremental changes that (1) amount to something really
new and (2) still manage to produce something good -- that's what's
difficult._ <<

Well of course it's hard. If it wasn't, everyone would be creative geniuses...

>> _but who'd ever considered that as a Thing that could be Changed, before
the cubists came along?)_ <<

I think that's exactly the point. Who would have considered it? Well, if you
systematically break something down into its component elements, and then make
changes to those elements, it makes it much more likely that you'll stumble
across something totally new. Think of it as a more sprawling form of A/B
testing if you'd like.

The more salient takeaway is the fact that "creativity" doesn't have to be
some mysterious lightning strike or whisper from the gods (or "non-linear
intuitive leap" as someone describes below) that only a few of us lucky ones
get to be party to.

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watmough
Excellent stuff, and I definitely believe that retaining some childhood wonder
and immaturity is vital to happiness. If you mature and pretend to know
everything, then where is the wonder and discovery in everyday life? How do
you sustain happiness without belief that every day holds bright new colors
and experiences?

I've never really looked at Picasso's art with any diligence or perseverance,
but I have definitely been inspired by the picture in that post, to go
download some of his cubist nudes and use them as screen backgrounds.

I'm sure Picasso would be happy to see people using him as an inspiration to
creativity.

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thirdsun
Maybe this is relevant: Beside my day-job I spend a lot of time making music.
When some artist or label wants me to remix something, I'll always avoid
listening to the original work - I'd just receive the samples and midi data,
even better if the filenames won't give anything (like the song structure)
away, and start working on my interpretation of those loose pieces that would
later develope into my idea of which parts should be key, emphasized or not
considered at all, which may differ a lot from what the original artist had in
mind.

At least when it comes to audio production and being asked to alter or re-
invent the work of someone else, the results will benefit if you don't have a
very clear reference point but just a bunch loose jigsaw pieces, that don't
have any right or wrong combination attached.

I thought this approach might be relevant to the topic as it seems like an
extension of the idea the article describes: If you try to make something
different, it's helpful not to know how it's done "right".

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tete
tl;dr: My theory is that creativity is - or at least is related to - the
ability to express yourself. So you usually have _some_ creativity and you
most likely can train it.

In my opinion and I spent a long time on this topic creativity is something
completely different. The reason I spent so much time thinking about
creativity is that I don't consider myself to be a very creative person. So I
wondered what causes this lack. I considered a lot of things until I came to
the conclusion that creativity is a form of expression, which means that
creativity describe the ability to express "stuff". In most cases it's about
emotions.

The outcome of creativity is usually considered to be art. Think about
something you consider to defiantly be art, for example a book or music. What
is it about or what makes it art? Yes I know, it's another term that can be
very hard to describe, but one can deny that art is generally related to some
kind of emotion or the absence of emotion. It's also why art often provokes.

So creativity _probably_ (it's all just a personal theory) means expressing
yourself, so learning to express yourself means becoming more creative. It
also means that as long you can in some way express yourself, especially your
emotions you are creative, maybe not very creative, but you are.

I think this can also be backed by science. Humans, as (generally speaking)
social species depend a lot on expressing themselves. They aren't like ants
for example, with a relatively small scope of action. They are very individual
and so it is important to understand emotions and express their own ones. If
this isn't the case it's considered to be a sign of a mental illness. I guess
that's also why people with mental illnesses receive a therapy where they do
something creative (usually drawing) and why most artists are usually very
emotional. Some of them also mention that their main reason for creating art
is a psychologically.

Last, but not least their are hackers (the ones at the CCC and not necessarily
intruders) who usually have a deep emotional commitment to the work they are
doing. I think it's probably also related to geeks, who often play role
playing games and when you think about science fiction stuff and things like
Commander Data and Mr. Spock it's also a lot about emotions.

By the way, there is also emotional intelligence which might be related to
this, but I'm not a psychologist, so I don't know a lot about this.

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wlsimmons
I'm sure that art can be broken into individual steps or elements but isn't
something lost in that kind of formalization? I always thought art or any
creative act for that matter was characterized by some sort of non-linear or
intuitive leap?

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30vanquish
It all comes down to putting your own variation on something that exists. Then
once you put out many variations on that original item, then that original
item is now your new creation.

Ex: Just listen to music from the same genre. Each artist has their own song
but there are similar elements from each song of all artists in that genre.

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adamdecaf
I've strongly believed that formal education should involve "reinventing the
wheel" with some knowledge before hand, but to push creativity, inspiration,
and adaptation when further knowledge is gained. It's how I've taught myself
so much, and I think it can work for a lot of kids/people.

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Hyena
Does anyone ever actually see an improvement in their creativity from a system
like that?

I'd imagine that most people just get stuck in a loop, reaffirming that those
are, in fact, the necessary elements.

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ajkessler
You say "necessary elements", but I'm not quite sure what you mean. If you
take the list from the article, I wouldn't really call any of them "necessary"
to create a nude painting. They were just the ones that a lot of other people
were using. That doesn't mean they're definitive in any way.

I use this system in photography all the time. I find breaking something down
into distinct elements really helps you identify what's going on. It feels
decidedly "uncreative" when you're doing it, but it works.

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Hyena
Well, no, I didn't use scare quotes, though that was my intent. Usually it
seems like the more people review some procedure, the more they convince
themselves that is how it's done.

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sayemm
"Without great solitude no serious work is possible." – Pablo Picasso

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urubu
Looks like someone has successfully reinvented Zwicky's morphological box.

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michaelpinto
People who are creative don't need to read articles on "how to be creative"
because that's pretty much the opposite of creativity. If you want to be
creative dare to play, dare to be different and just get to work.

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swombat
Yeah, and people who are project managers don't need to read articles about
project management. And people who are programmers don't need to read articles
about programming. And entrepreneurs don't need to read articles about
startups.

Because we're all born geniuses and perfect in every way.

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michaelpinto
Actually "swombat" unlike yourself I'm a creative professional who holds a
design degree. As a CTO do you read articles on how to be technical?

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swombat
Of course I do. Do you really read no articles about design? Your designs must
be really good, then.

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michaelpinto
An article on design isn't the same thing as "how to be creative" swombat. And
if makes you feel creative you can down vote this comment too, but that won't
impact my awards shelf...

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swombat
I didn't downvote your comment. You don't get to downvote replies to your own
comment on HN.

This isn't Reddit, so I'll hold back my impulse to tell you where to put your
awards and your attitude.

"michaelpinto".

