100 Things Number 3: Creativity and Originality

[dreamflower]

Creativity and Originality

This post I think will be more questions than answers: how important is the concept of originality to creativity, and what actually constitutes originality?

We live in a world already made. We use the colors we see, the sounds we hear, the words we read, the foods we taste, the textures we feel, and we recombine them in order to make the things we make. In this sense, all art is a re-mix.

And yet we come up with so many different and new combinations.

I'm going to pose some scenarios:

You take a walk, and you see a beautiful scene in front of you-- a lake, a blue sky, a mountain in the background, and some trees in the foreground lush with blazing fall foliage. You are so inspired by the beauty of this scene that you want to create something to remind you of your awe.

So you take a photograph. Is the photo creative? Is it more creative if you take the time to get the perfect angle and shot than if you hold the camera up and snap?

Or you take the photograph home and use it to make a painting of the scene. Is the painting more creative than the photo? If you make the painting as close a representation of the real scene as possible, is that less creative than if you decide to put an extra tree on one side of the foreground and a couple less on the other side?

Or what if you are not a painter, so instead of painting the scene, you write a poem about it? Is that more or less creative than painting a picture that looks like what you actually saw?

What if you did not see it yourself? What if, instead, you take a class on painting, and this is a scene the teacher saw and painted, and now in order to learn, you are to copy her painting using the techniques she is teaching you-- is that less creative than painting the picture from your own experience?

There are other students in the class. All of you are trying to paint exactly what she painted, but you notice at the end of the class that none of the other students' paintings look exactly like it, nor do they look like yours. There are all sorts of subtle differences between each and every painting, even though they are all of the exact same scene. Do the differences constitute originality?

What if you see the painting in a book that gives you step by step directions for reproducing it yourself. If you paint it exactly as the directions say, is it less creative than if you decide to substitute some other colors for the ones given in the instructions?

What if you see an oil painting of the scene, and you decide to paint the same scene in watercolors or acrylic? Is that more or less original than copying the painting in oils?

What if you see a painting of this scene that someone else did, and you decide to use that painting as the basis for making something else, such as a quilt incorporating that scene-- is that more creative than simply copying the painting with another painting?

If you happened to be a musician, and the scene inspires you to write a song about it, is the song more creative if you are singing about a scene you saw personally? Is it less creative if you only see it in a picture someone else made?

What if you read a poem someone else wrote about the scene, and you decide to write a story using that scene as a setting for your story? Is that more or less creative than the poem?

Let's take it another step further-- the person who saw the scene took a photo, which inspired someone else to do a painting. The painting inspired someone else to write a song about it. The song inspired another person to write a story. You are then inspired to write a fanfiction of the story. Is any person in any step along the way less creative than the person before? Is any one of them more or less original than the others?

What is original? What does it mean to do something no one else has ever done? If no two people ever make something exactly alike, is that originality? Or does there have to be intent to be original?

I see "creativity" as the act of "making". To me, all of the possibilities above are describing someone who is involved in the act of creating something. The impulse to create is not necessarily tied to making something "original", that is to say, something new.

How do you feel about the importance of originality?

Comments

[baranduin.livejournal.com]

Interesting post! I feel strongly about the importance of originality. Without it, there would not be a progression in the level of creativity, there would be a sameness. I don't necessarily mean that something is of greater quality if it is something new since that's a subjective call, but I do think it's important.

For example, I love Romanesque architecture. It has a groundedness to it with its concentration on roundness, rounded arches. the buildings feel rooted to the earth. But one day someone decided to point those arches, most likely perceiving doing so would increase load bearing capability and therefore the ability to build higher, taller. It was something new and original. Now, like I said, I love the Romanesque but how sad if the Gothic had not come into being in all its soaring gloriousity. (This is wildly simplified since of course it didn't happen all in one go, there was a progression in the styles of building but I do think it's a valid point, lol, no pun intended.)

I could go into more specific examples but that would just be the ravings of an old Art History major :-) Great post, really enjoying your explorations of creativity.

[dreamflower]

(This is wildly simplified since of course it didn't happen all in one go, there was a progression in the styles of building but I do think it's a valid point, lol, no pun intended.)

I think you may have hit on a part of what I think about originality: it exists along a continuum-- one small change or idea leads to another, and so forth. I don't think it exists in a vacuum.

And almost all new ideas are built on old ones...

[lindahoyland.livejournal.com]

Very well said!

[dreamflower]

Thank you!

[ramblin_rosie]

We are all sub-creators; "there is nothing new under the sun." But by the same token, we are all sub-creators; "we make still by the law in which we're made." There may be a limit to which anything can be truly original, but that doesn't mean we ought not try--yet I still think Harold Bloom can take his anxiety of influence on a long walk off a short pier. It is, as you say, something of a continuum.

[dreamflower]

Yes, I quoted from that poem of JRRT's in my first post. I think it says very well what it means to be a sub-creator.

There's a wide difference between, say, an innovator like Thomas Edison and a child who builds something with his Legos or a woman who uses a kit to embroider pillowcases-- and yet the same impulse moves all three of them: the need to make. And all three could take the same joy in the process and the same pride in the finished product.

[lbilover.livejournal.com]

Well, I think there is a special genius that some people are born with that sets them apart from the rest of humanity in terms of creativity. Tolkien being one, of course. He acknowledged various influences on his writing, but what he produced is what I would think of as 'original'. And he inspired many, many writers, and some to my mind are imitators and I wouldn't give them much credit for originality. But others took that inspiration to create truly original stories. So yeah, the impulse to create is not necessarily tied to making something 'original'. I just mentioned in a reply to a comment on my fanfic post the famous 'there are only 7 basic story lines' idea. This is an interesting article about that: http://us.penguingroup.com/static/html/blogs/seven-stories-rule-world-matt-haig
He says: That does not mean a novel or a play or a film can't be truly original. Of course it can. It's just originality doesn't come through plot.
It comes from style and voice and the imagination that brings language and characters and settings to life. Shakespeare, for instance, never bothered himself with inventing plots. The story of Hamlet had already been told, in more prosaic form several times before. Same with King Lear and Macbeth and every other Shakespeare work you can think of.

Interesting post! Thanks!!

[dreamflower]

Well, I think there is a special genius that some people are born with that sets them apart from the rest of humanity in terms of creativity.

Yes, I agree. There are some people who have that clear focus on a special area of creativity that sets them apart and makes a mark on the world-- and yes, Tolkien was one of them. JRRT's special talent was language, and he was a genius in his use of it.

And yet I do think his imitators (good or bad) are being creative: they are making their own takes on what he began. This includes not only those professionals who change the world and the characters and claim him only as "inspiration", but those of us who frankly and openly borrow what he created to add our own touches via fanfiction.

But IMO, all people who make things are being creative. There may be only a little bit of originality in what they make, or there may be a lot-- to me, it's that impulse to make something that constitutes creativity. Originality always comes from a creative act, yet not every creative act includes originality. Does that make sense?

OTOH, I think that the more often one engages in creative acts, the more likely that originality will come from them. For example, a cook who follows a recipe exactly is creating a dish. But if that person cooks a lot, he or she will gradually begin making changes to the recipes and perhaps eventually begin to cook new dishes with no recipe at all.

[gentlehobbit.livejournal.com]

I like this very much. Food for thought!

For the step by step directions for reproducing a painting, I would definitely say that if you choose to use different colours than what the direction say, you are indeed being more creative. For me, the creativity in an individual lies in their choices, their interpretations, their own path. If all they are doing is precisely following the steps in instructions, then I'd commend them for being able to follow instructions well and ending up with a (presumably) nice picture. It's the branching off, the decision-making and the individuality which play a large part in what I see as creativity.

[dreamflower]

Yet I don't think we should discount the learning process: to get to the point where you can branch off and add your own individuality, you first have to learn how, and that involves following the instructions almost completely at the beginning, less and less as you get better at it.

But the person who is just learning an art or a craft is first moved by the impulse to create, to make something. That spark of desire is what causes them to seek out instructions. And I think that spark is still creative even at the beginning.

This is why I differentiate between originality and creativity. The branching off, the decision making, the individuality, I call that the "originality"-- while I call the desire, the need, to make something "creativity".

I see that not everyone makes a difference between the two, but I do think there is a very subtle difference.