David W. Galenson: Old Masters and Young Geniuses. ...

A major contribution to creativity research. Exciting to read, highly inspiring and rich in uplifting quotations. Bold in its central thesis, well written, in a language accessible to all. Personally I found the book extremely useful in terms of my own self-understanding regarding my Paphos-seminar and the creative efforts of living philosophy that the Paphos projects tries to exemplify.

 "There have been two very different types of artist in the modern era. ... I call one of these methods aesthetically motivated experimentation, and the other conceptual execution." (p. 4)

The archetypes are Paul Cézanne (experimental innovation) and Pablo Picasso (conceptual innovation), as crystallized with the quotations:"I seek in painting" (Cézanne) and "I don't seek; I find. (Picasso).

Galenson's chief idea is to show that there is a connection between the artist´s orientation in the experimental-conceptual -dimension and the artist´s life cycles. This basic thesis is elaborated using a huge amount of qualitative and quantitative material, the presentation of which alone makes this book one of the best I know on the theme of creativity.