Creativity in Art

Datos Bibliográficos

ID10696538
AutoresVincent Tomas (autor de correspondencia)
Año1958
Volumen67
Número1
Páginas1
Fecha de publicación1958-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe Philosophical Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0031-8108 • E-ISSN: 1558-1470
EditorialJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/2182766
OpenAlexW2318584365
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas6

W HEN a rifleman aims at his target, he knows what he wants to do. He wants to hit the bull's-eye. Before he shoots, he knows what the target is; he knows that the black circle in the center of it is the bull's-eye; and he knows that hitting the bull's-eye consists in causing a bullet to pass through that black circle. He also knows, before he has squeezed the trigger, that if, after he has squeezed it, a hole appears in the black circle, he will have succeeded in doing what he wanted to do; and that if there isn't a hole there, he will have failed. Furthermore, the rifleman knows what he ought to do to hit the bull's-eye. He knows what position he ought to assume, how he ought to adjust the sling, where exactly he ought to place his left hand, where he ought to place the butt so that it fits his shoulder and cheek, what the sight picture ought to be, how he ought to exhale a little and then hold his breath when the sight picture is correct, and how he ought to squeeze off the shot without knowing exactly when the explosion will come, so that he won't flinch until after it is too late to spoil his aim. If, after the rifleman has attempted to obey all these rules, he fails to hit the bull's-eye, any sergeant can tell him, and the rifleman will agree, that he did fail; and that, since he did, he had not obeyed all the rules. For, if he had obeyed them, there necessarily would have been a hole in the bull's-eye. If, on the other hand, he does hit the bull's-eye, the white disc is displayed and the rifleman is congratulated. He is congratulated, whether the people who congratulate him realize it or not, for having been able to learn and to obey all the rules. When we congratulate an artist for being creative, however, it is not because he was able to obey rules that were known before he painted his picture or wrote his novel or poem, so that thereby he succeeded in doing what had been done before. We congratulate him because he embodied in colors or in language something the like of which did not' exist before, and because he was the originator of the rules he implicitly followed while

Creativity · Aesthetic Perception and Analysis · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology