58 TEACHERs COLLEGE COLUmbIA UNIvERsITy
All In The Timing: Using Embryological Principles To Understand Creative Thinking In Art
age at which they produced their most important
and influential work (Galenson 2001, 2006; Jensen,
2004): some, like Raphael, Picasso, and the Surreal-
ists, produced their best work early, in their twen-
ties or thirties; others, like Leonardo, Velázquez, or
Cézanne, produced their best work much later, in
their fifties or sixties. Artists also show enormous
differences in their creative processes. Galenson
(2001) proposed that early-peaking artists tend to
be known for significant conceptual innovations
that rebel against tradition and fundamentally alter
the rules of a domain; they also work with great
confidence and focus on ideation as the means of
garnering critical acclaim, using conceptual criteria
in judging their work. In contrast, later-peaking art-
ists are known for building on tradition, working in
a more trial-and-error fashion, placing a far greater
priority on execution than ideation, and using per-
ceptual criteria in judging their work. Looking at
these results through the lens of changes of timing
to standard means of depiction suggests that early-
peaking artists do not introduce heterochronies
into their methods of production: unusual ideas
or conceptual combinations are simply channeled
through the standard efficient techniques for execu-
tion. In contrast, late-peaking artists frequently
appear to have introduced important changes of
timing into their depictive process, suggesting that
such heterochronies represent important occasions
for learning and the development of a kind of cre-
ative wisdom that allows these artists to continually
improve (see Kozbelt, 2009a). Thus, ontogenetic
heterochrony has the potential to inform the specif-
ics of the creative process in predictive, as well as
descriptive, ways.
I also note that the overt de-emphasis on ide-
ation among “heterochonrous,” late-peaking artists
reinforces the need for a more balanced appraisal of
the importance of the process of elaborating ideas
for the creative process more generally. Indeed, art-
ists themselves often make remarks that suggest that
they have almost no idea of what they want to do
when they begin a work. To wit: Richard Dieben-
korn stated, “I don’t go into the studio with the idea
of “saying” something. What I do is face the blank
canvas and put a few arbitrary marks on it that start
me on some sort of dialogue.” Willem de Kooning
noted, “I see the canvas and I begin...It’s a neces-
sary evil to get into the work, and it’s pretty marvel-
ous to be able to get out of it.” Noyes Capehart Long
wrote, “I rarely begin a work with any clear or pre-
determined ideas as to how the work should look.
Even when I do, I seldom find the completed work
matching up with the original projection” (quotes
from Genn, 2011).Conclusion
The fitful emergence of a great artwork through
a rich, complex, interactive creative dynamic is
a radically different way of conceptualizing the
nature of creative thought compared to the standard
“lightbulb” image. Applying the principle of onto-
genetic heterochrony to this dynamic and to artists’
schemata represent a way of understanding artistic
practice in a detailed, nuanced, and powerful way
that redresses numerous shortcomings of existing
domain-general, ideation-intensive models of the
creative process. This novel approach also spans
multiple levels of analysis, from micro-level mark-
making moves through the career trajectories of
the greatest artists in the Western tradition. Further
elaboration and empirical testing will determine the
extent to which this framework will enhance our
knowledge of visual art and creativity.ReferencesAbzhanov, A., Protas, M., B. Grant, R., Grant, P.R.
& Tabin, C.J. (2004). Bmp4 and morphological
variation of beaks in Darwin’s finches. Science,
305 , 1462-1465.
Galenson, D. W. (2001). Painting outside the lines:
Patterns of creativity in modern art. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
Galenson, D. W. (2006). Old masters and young
geniuses: The two life cycles of artistic creativity.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Genn, R. (2011). Beginning art quotations. Re-
trieved from http://quote.robertgenn.com/get-
quotes.php?catid=27
Getzels, J. W., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1976). The
creative vision: A longitudinal study of problem
finding in art. New York: Wiley.
Gombrich, E. H. (1960). Art and illusion. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press.
Gombrich, E. H. (1991). Topics of our time. London:
Phaidon.