Are you an experimental or conceptual creative?

The act of creating can unlock personal breakthroughs, emotions, ideas, and frustrations. Throughout history, artists have approached creativity in all sorts of unique ways. Some carry a sense of immediacy in the execution of their work, while others take years or decades to develop a single piece. I never knew that artists and innovators could be categorized by their approach to creativity until I learned about David Galenson in a lecture last fall.

Professor and author David Galenson examines the careers of sculptors, poets, novelists, and movie directors to name a few. In Galenson’s book Old Masters and Young Geniuses, he dives deeper into understanding the creative process and our perceptions of art. From his research he determined two different approaches to creating art: experimental innovation and conceptual innovation.

Sounds complicated? Read descriptions A and B below to see which best describes you.

Artist A

You have a specific vision in mind that is often led by a sudden breakthrough. Your plans are detailed, and you know what the process will be like. You’re driven by the desire to communicate a particular idea, and are satisfied once you’ve achieved your purpose. You are a conceptual artist, or what Galenson calls a “Young Genius.”

Artist B

You have a vague and elusive goal in mind. Planning is not top priority because learning is a more important goal than the finished work. You may get frustrated because you’re a perfectionist and are never really satisfied with a piece of work. You are an experimental artist, or what Galenson calls an “Old Master.”

Any chance either of these descriptions hit close to home? Both descriptions only begin to scratch the surface of Galenson’s categorizations of the motivations and patterns of different types of artists and innovators. Personally, I’m an experimental artist type of girl. As much as I seek out creative satisfaction, I rarely achieve that breakthrough moment of realization that conceptual artists are known for.

Galenson recognizes Picasso as a conceptual artist, pointing out the abrupt stylistic changes in his work that could be deemed unpredictable. Often planning his work in advance with great detail, Picasso rejected the notion of his art as an evolution, but rather hinted at the idea of his work being discoveries that carried a deliberate message. Galenson highlights that the “career of the conceptual innovator is often distinguished by discontinuity” in contrast to experimental artists who tend to produce many closely related pieces of work.

On the other hand, Galenson identifies Cézanne as an experimental artist. Comparing Picasso and Cézanne, Historian Pierre Cabanne states, “there is not one Picasso, but ten, twenty, always different, unpredictably changing, and in this he was the opposite of Cézanne, whose work… followed that logical, reasonable course to fruition.”

Though the question remains as to whether there exists a “reasonable course to fruition” for Cézanne, his work ethic and relationship to the accumulation of knowledge over time best captures the essence of an experimental artist. In 1906, only a month before his death, Cézanne wrote to a friend:

Now it seems to me that I see better and that I think more correctly about the direction of my studies. Will I ever attain the end for which I have striven so much and so long? I hope so, but as long as it is not attained a vague state of uneasiness persists which will not disappear until I have reached port, that is until I have realized something which develops better than in the past… So I continue to study… I am always studying after nature, and it seems to me that I make slow progress. (P. Cézanne, Letters, New York: Da Capo Press, 1995, pp. 329-30)

Cézanne may very well be the epitome of perfectionism. Experimental artists such as Cézanne are old masters in the way they exhaust so much time and energy into developing their craft. Meanwhile, conceptual artists have the striking quality of young geniuses who are able to execute an idea without trial and error.

Understanding these two approaches to art and innovation raises some interesting questions around achieving success and navigating mental health as a creator.

Is it possible that an artist’s approach to the creative process may dictate whether or not they garner success? Do we assume that the fast ideation of conceptual artists is prized in society, while experimental artists spend a lifetime tweaking their work to perfection?

These archetypes of attitudes toward creativity exist not only in painters like Picasso and Cézanne, but in all creative domains. So which are you, an old master or young genius?