THE ELEMENTS OF CREATIVE AND EXPRESSIVE ARTISTRY

iUniverse, Inc.

Contents

Acknowledgments..................................................................ixAbout the Author.................................................................xiIntroduction.....................................................................1Chapter 1 The Creative Impulse...................................................6Chapter 2 Form...................................................................15Chapter 3 Form Expression........................................................28Chapter 4 Form Structure.........................................................45Chapter 5 Form Function..........................................................61Chapter 6 Form Content...........................................................82Chapter 7 Form Context...........................................................95Chapter 8 Composition............................................................121Chapter 9 Perspective............................................................135Chapter 10 Medium................................................................149Chapter 11 Compositional Space...................................................156Chapter 12 Arrangement...........................................................162Chapter 13 Balance (Proportion)..................................................178Chapter 14 Focus.................................................................194Chapter 15 Movement..............................................................204Chapter 16 Technique.............................................................215Chapter 17 Technical Knowledge...................................................230Chapter 18 Skill Dexterity.......................................................245Chapter 19 Concentration.........................................................253Chapter 20 Perception............................................................265Chapter 21 Sensation.............................................................276Chapter 22 Sensory Memory........................................................287Chapter 23 Emotionality..........................................................294Chapter 24 Emotional Attitude....................................................304Chapter 25 Emotional Memory......................................................316Chapter 26 Emotional Depth.......................................................324Chapter 27 Emotional Range.......................................................337Chapter 28 Conscious Imagination.................................................346Chapter 29 Experience............................................................354Chapter 30 Conception............................................................366Chapter 31 Relative Truth........................................................378Chapter 32 Artistic Choice.......................................................390Chapter 33 Subconscious Imagination..............................................398Chapter 34 Symbolism.............................................................408Chapter 35 Epiphany..............................................................421Chapter 36 Spirituality..........................................................431Chapter 37 The Call..............................................................440Chapter 38 Vision................................................................447Chapter 39 Passion...............................................................459Chapter 40 Inspiration...........................................................468Chapter 41 Artistic Faith........................................................480Chapter 42 Ecstasy...............................................................488Chapter 43 Spontaneity (Flow)....................................................497Chapter 44 Improvisation.........................................................507Chapter 45 Self-Discovery........................................................519Chapter 46 Simplicity............................................................527Afterword........................................................................535Glossary.........................................................................539References.......................................................................545Index............................................................................563

Chapter One

Quotation

I don't make plans. All my life, one artistic impulse has simply led to another.

—Chris Van Allsburg, American author and illustrator

From the living fountain of instinct flows everything that is creative; hence the unconscious is not merely conditioned by history, but is the very source of the creative impulse.

—Carl Jung, Swiss psychiatrist

The teacher, like the artist and the philosopher, can perform his work adequately only if he feels himself to be an individual directed by an inner creative impulse, not dominated and fettered by an outside authority.

—Bertrand Russell, British logician and philosopher

The action of the body is nothing but the act of the will objectified.

—Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher

Introduction

For artistic human beings, the urge to create is strong. For the artist, the creative impulse may be particularly acute. In fact, the powerful drive of the creative impulse may cause an artist to forgo food, sleep, safety, companionship, and other comforts in order to stake out an isolated patch of space and time in which to create. This chapter will explore this dynamic force of the artistic creator.

Definition

Creative Impulse: 1) the artistic intention to express the self through form and performance; 2) the urge to express personality and imagination to create an aesthetic effect; 3) the objectification of the will through artistic action.

The Artistic Impulse to Create

In the formative stages of artistic development, the artist expresses the creative impulse or drive to create through some specific medium, for example, through colorful paints or crayons, expressive movement and gesture, or musical rhythm. The medium may be associated with a particular artistic domain, as paints and crayons represent the visual art domain, or as the written word represents the literary arts. Sometimes the medium may represent multiple domains, for example, expressive movement and gesture can represent both the dance arts and the dramatic arts. Other times, the young artist may be drawn to presenting the self not so much in a medium but as a compositional format. In fact, this was the case with young Martha Graham. She knew her calling was some type of stage performing art. Graham, perhaps even as young as age four or five, knew the theatrical forms of performance stimulated her creative impulse, but could not decide in which of the associated artistic domains to make her mark. Fortunately, her creative impulse ultimately led her to the dance arts.

Once the artist gains some grounding in a specific artistic domain, for example, visual art, dance, or music, the artist, who has now attained greater sophistication, becomes seduced by a set of specific aesthetic elements, such as color and imagination, movement and form, or rhythm and composition. At this stage, the artist develops specific proclivities toward expressing certain aesthetic elements based on creative intention, personality, experience, and aesthetic appeal.

Early in my research, I realized the supreme value of the creative impulse. It motivates the production of "big C" and "little c" artistic productions. Developmental psychologist Howard Gardner elucidates the magnitude of acts of "creativity with the big C and creativity with a little c" with the following explanation: "Big C," along with social progress and civilization development, enables the creation of artistic masterpieces, whereas the "little c" provides daily aesthetics enhancements like "arranging flowers in a vase, setting a colorful table, or designing a plan for a vegetable garden" (Malchiodi, 2007, p. 64).

A person driven by creative impulse to express art, even without prior knowledge of its aesthetics, is a potential artist and will learn to express many of these aesthetic elements through his own discovery. However, if you teach someone to recognize each of the root and branch artistic elements outlined in this book (which, in some combination account for all artistic expressiveness), the artistically-inclined individual will likely become more artistically actualized.

Exposing the artist to all of the artistic elements allows the artist to recognize the particular elemental attributes of the creative impulse being expressed. For example, a poet may have the creative urge to express the self more through poetic form than through imagination. In this case, actualizing the form would be the emphasis of the artistic intention. On the other hand, a dramatic artist may, for a particular performance, stress spontaneity as an elemental aesthetic over dramatic form; achieving the desired expression of spontaneity equals success on that basis.

Of course, these examples are highly simplistic, as an artist usually conveys a combination of aesthetic elements through every artistic expression. As choreographers Lynne Anne Blom and Tarin L. Chaplin suggest, many times "there isn't a clear intention; there is only an inner drive, a restless energy, vague and undirected, a need to create" (Blom & Chaplin, 1982, p. 9).

Nevertheless, these cases illustrate the inclinations of the artist's desire to express certain elements based on artistic intent, even if the specific artistic elements are only vaguely understood. To increase the artist's awareness of the dynamic forces that comprise this master impulse, it could be helpful to visualize the creative impulse as a large tree trunk. Though the tree trunk jutting out from the ground appears to possess only one energy source, if we examined the roots anchoring the tree below the surface, we would see the trunk branch off into a complex root system. If the larger roots of this system represented the major aesthetic elements of artistic expression, nine massive roots would feed into the trunk. Therefore, at the major elemental level, nine root elements would feed the creative impulse channel. To illustrate this with another analogy, the creative impulse channel comprises nine smaller impulse channels that express the nine root elements of creative artistry.

The nine creative impulses of artistry are as follows:

Impulse 1 - Formal Artistry

The creative impulse of the artist to express the aesthetics of form.

Impulse 2 - Compositional Artistry

The creative impulse of the artist to express the aesthetics of composition.

Impulse 3 - Technical Artistry

The creative impulse of the artist to express the aesthetics of technique.

Impulse 4 - Perceptual Artistry

The creative impulse of the artist to express the aesthetics of perception and sensation.

Impulse 5 - Emotional Artistry

The creative impulse of the artist to express the aesthetics of emotions.

Impulse 6 - Conscious Artistry

The creative impulse of the artist to express conscious imagination.

Impulse 7 - Subconscious (Intuitive) Artistry

The creative impulse of the artist to express the aesthetics of intuitive (subconscious) imagination.

Impulse 8 - Spiritual Artistry

The creative impulse of the artist to express the aesthetics of spirituality.

Impulse 9 - Improvisational Artistry

The creative impulse of the artist to express the aesthetics of spontaneity.

An artist usually leans toward expressing one subset of the nine creative impulses over another. This can be an acute leaning, which changes from composition to composition, depending on overall artistic intent, or it may be a chronic leaning, due to limitations in artistic development. For example, in the latter case an artist may possess a blind spot that disables the expression of a certain set of impulses. If an artist lacks the faculty to express the self through imagination, the resultant ideas expressed may be lackluster, or worse, cliché.

Each of the nine creative impulses has minor impulses branching off from them. If we return to the root system analogy, from each of the nine major roots would branch a series of smaller off shoots. Where the nine main roots are called root elements, these smaller off shoots are called branch elements. Below are 36 branch elements that branch from the nine major root elements.

Formal Artistry

Form – root element

Form Expression – knowledge base Form Structure – branch element Form Function – branch element Form Content – branch element Form Context – branch element

Compositional Artistry

Composition (art product) – root element

Perspective – knowledge base Medium – media Compositional Space – branch element Arrangement – branch element Balance – branch element Focus – branch element Movement – branch element

Technical Artistry

Technique – root element

Technical Knowledge – knowledge base Skill Dexterity – branch element Concentration – branch element

Perceptual Artistry

Perception – root element

Sensation – branch element Sense Memory (Impression) – knowledge base

Emotional Artistry

Emotionality – root element

Emotional Attitude – branch element Emotional Memory – knowledge base Emotional Depth – branch element Emotional Range – branch element

Conscious Artistry

Conscious Imagination – root element

Experience – knowledge base Conception – branch element Relative Truth – branch element Artistic Choice – branch element

Subconscious Artistry

Subconscious Imagination– root element

Symbolism – branch element Epiphany – knowledge base

Spiritual Artistry

Spirituality – root element

The Call – branch element Transcendental Experience - knowledge base Passion – branch element Artistic Faith – branch element Ecstasy – branch element Inspiration – branch element

Improvisational Artistry

Spontaneity – root element

Improvisation – knowledge base Self-discovery – branch element Simplicity – branch element

Extending the analogy to its logical conclusion, each of the root Elements is comprised of a set of branch elements. For example, technique, the third root element, is comprised of the following three branch elements: technical knowledge, skill dexterity, and concentration. An artist may have a creative impulse to express himself through technique; however, an artist may have a more specified creative impulse to express himself through one of the branch elements, i.e., technical knowledge, skill dexterity, or concentration.

An artist has the potential to express any of the nine broad groups of elements (i.e., root elements) of artistry or the 36 more specified branch elements of artistry. Understanding the impulses an artist has expressed or is inclined to express leads to identifying and developing underutilized or dormant impulses. An impulse can be described as superdominant, dominant, subdominant, or dormant. Ideally, perhaps, the artist should evolve the facility to express any grouping of impulses. This is usually a lifelong pursuit, which, depending upon the intentional goals of the artist, may or may not be worthwhile.

Style is the expression of the creative impulse by the artistic personality. As personality consists of the melding of technical and improvisational skills, as well as emotional, psychological, and spiritual temperament, style is complex and not easily analyzed. Oftentimes, analysis of an artist's particular style is made in respect to only one or two of these characteristics. However, studying the artist in relation to the above attributes provides a more nuanced profile of an artist's particular style.

Chapter Two

Form (root element)

Form Form Form Form Form Expression Structure Function Content Context (knowledge base) (branch element) (branch element) (branch element) (branch element)

Quotation

No matter how interesting your ideas are, they have no value if you do not find the form which expresses them. —Sonia Moore, actor, dancer, author, and teacher

The marble not yet carved can hold the form of every thought the greatest artist has. —Michelangelo, Italian sculptor, painter, and architect

Introduction

The conception of an artistic form for the artist is the impetus of the creative process. Whether the form is an existing form or an emerging one, it must first be conceptualized. Sparked by the vitality of imagination, form often germinates the artistic vision. Form and its active cousin, performance, materially expressed through composition are the end creations of all artistic disciplines.

Definition:

Form: 1) an expression of aesthetics; 2) the expression of the aesthetics of artistry through the visual arts (e.g., painting, collage, and sculpture), the literary arts (e.g., fiction, poetry), and the performing arts (e.g., drama, music, and dance); 3) the aesthetics of art expressed through matter, energy, space, and time; and 4) performance.

Performance: 1) the live or recorded presentation of aesthetics through the performing arts, including music, dance, and drama; 2) the artistic presentation of the aesthetics through media in motion; and 3) the aesthetic actions related to the expression of the dramatic, kinesthetic, and musical arts.

An Overview of Form

The conception of artistic form is the initial step for actualizing any artistic work, whether an art product or performance. The next step is the materialization of the form through some type of medium. Once the form is conceptualized, the artist then applies technique to express the central form and other supporting forms through a materialized composition. This conception-materialization process expresses the aesthetic elements of imagination, perception, emotionality, spirituality, and spontaneity through some art form, such as music, drama, dance, or literature, ultimately leading to the creation of an artistic work.

The constituents of form consists of five branch elements:

• form expression • form function

• form structure

• form content

• form context

As the topic of formal expression is complex, these aspects of form cannot be cleanly extracted from one another. Nonetheless, the next five chapters of this unit will be devoted to defining, analyzing, and exploring each of these branch elements and their interrelationships.

In conjunction with imagination (and spontaneity, which is in a special category by itself), form is the most significant root element. Form succinctly expresses the shapes of the experiences embedded in the imagination in a conceptual way. Philosopher and educator John Dewey (1934) believed form was a way of intensely expressing images, feelings, and experiences to effectively impact the reality of the observer. The most impressive artistic productions and performances accomplish this.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from THE ELEMENTS OF CREATIVE AND EXPRESSIVE ARTISTRYby BRIAN K. HEMPHILL Copyright © 2011 by Brian K. Hemphill. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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