Negative Capability: A Disposition for Creativity
February 22, 2021
“…Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason — Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge.”
With this statement in a letter to his brothers in 1817, John Keats, the singular English poet, describes his concept of Negative Capability. It seems clear that this concept describes a condition in which the potential for creativity is optimized.
See also this post from Richard Gunderman in The Conversation.
John Keats died 200 years ago tomorrow, February 23, 1821.
Imagination in “The Queen’s Gambit”
November 23, 2020
In “The Queen’s Gambit”, currently showing on Netflix in the U.S., the protagonist Beth Harmon, a young orphan is first introduced to the game of chess by observing from a distance. Having activated what develops into a genius for the game, she uses the stimulant and relaxant drugs her orphanage requires to activate her imagination to run through games and moves.
A sometimes demeaned phenomenon, imagination is present and available to anyone with only a shift of attention and a willingness to trust this arational aspect of knowing. As a form of knowing imagination follows logic that does not apply to rational knowing.
(Mild spoiler ahead!) Beth’s dependence on the drugs for this imaginative process runs throughout the story until near the end she discovers she can, and must in this instance, use her imagination in this way without the drugs. For me, this was one of the best parts of an engaging and entertaining story.
For one scholarly and enlightening explanation of the logics of rationality verses arationality see: Gregory Bateson, “Style, Grace, and Information in Primitive Art”, in Steps to an Ecology of Mind. 1972
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Queen’s_Gambit_(miniseries)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steps_to_an_Ecology_of_Mind?wprov=sfti1
David Lynch on the Conditions for Creativity
November 20, 2020
Persistent habits facilitate creativity by leaving the mind open and uncluttered. The undeniably creative Lynch explains his methods.
The Recipes of Famous Artists: Dinners & Cocktails From Tolstoy, Miles Davis, Marilyn Monroe, David Lynch & Many More | Open Culture
August 17, 2020
The Recipes of Famous Artists: Dinners & Cocktails From Tolstoy, Miles Davis, Marilyn Monroe, David Lynch & Many More | Open Culture
— Read on www.openculture.com/2020/08/the-recipes-of-famous-artists.html
Why Does Art Matter? (Sonny Rollins)
May 22, 2020
Music and art as an “accumulation of wisdom, the context art gives us that puts life into perspective, (Sonny Rollins) and transcends politics. From an article in the New York Times, May 18, 2020, as told to Ian Carlino.
Automatic Drawing as Imagination Exercise
December 11, 2019
This video below shows a graphic comic artist demonstrating automatic drawing. I learned to do this in the late sixties when I was studying art. Although the artist says, “let your brain” do the work, I actually experience it as letting my body/mind do the drawing while suspending any conscious, deliberate attention. (I imagined that the energy for the movement of the drawing come directly from my heart through my arm, bypassing my head. I felt like an observer to my own drawing process.) While following along as an observer I was always surprised at what emerged. At some point late in the process I would notice an object emerging from the markings. At this point I would redirect my attention and apply deliberate action to bringing out the newly discovered object. This process of automatic drawing has been very rewarding, both as a meditative process and a way to discover new images heretofore hidden below my conscious awareness.
More on Creativity, from a Master
August 3, 2018
Here is a very good article on creative flow from an angle from which you may not be aware. Enjoy.
How to Unleash the Great Perfection of Creativity
By Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche
From Lion’s Roar; Buddhist Wisdom for Our Time, July 2, 2017
Informed by the profound teachings of Dzogchen, the Great Perfection, Geshe Tenzin Wangyal tells us how to unleash powerful creative energy we can use anywhere, from the office to the art studio.
Photo by Jennifer Pack.
Eye Movement Exercise Increases Creativity
November 16, 2009
A new study has shown evidence that creativity is boosted by an intervention of bi-lateral eye movement designed to increase hemispheric cross-talk. Some of you may be familiar with the use of Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR) which also uses bi-lateral eye movements. This article from the Research Digest blog of the British Psychological Society discusses eye movements for increasing creativity. Interestingly, the outcomes are affected by which hand is the stronger- as in right- or left-handed.
Are you wondering why the picture is of a brick for this post? So did I when I saw the original. The article will reveal all.
Fellini’s Imagination
October 24, 2009
"For me the world of my imagination is always closer to the truth than is the truth."
"If I wander around the world looking at things, it is only to reassure myself that the world I have invented is true."
Frederico Fellini (1920-1993)
Every issue of Life Magazine until the end of 1972 is available on Google Books for free. I did a search there for imagination and found this entry: From the July 30, 1971 issue of Life is an article by Dora Jane Hamblin on Frederico Fellini , the great Italian movie director. This piece is about the creation of his made-for-tv film, The Clowns. If you are familiar with his films you know how imaginative they are- perhaps some of the best examples of imagination in filmmaking. The Life magazine article has sketches made by Fellini as studies for this film.
Apparently, Fellini was greatly influenced the Jungian analyst Dr. Ernst Bernhard and by the autobiography of Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections
