Creativity and Life Cycles of Artists

Abstract

Age curves, which relate age to creativity or exceptional achievements, seem to take two forms: some artists bloom early (Picasso), others later in life (Cézanne). We argue that this objective fact is not related to their mode of creation according to which some artists proceed by drawings made prior to the painting's execution, while others are more likely to imitate and achieve this through color and the process of painting itself.

Innovation, experience and artists’ age-valuation profiles: evidence from eighteenth-century rococo and neoclassical painters

“…In a series of influential studies, Galenson (2000Galenson ( , 2001Galenson ( , 2009) and Weinberg (2000, 2001) estimate hedonic age-valuation profiles for different cohorts of artists and find that in both the French and American cases, the younger cohort, that is, the cohort for which artistic innovation is more highly valued, has an agevaluation profile that ''peaks'' much earlier in life, consistent with the idea that the aptitudes to excel in this way are relatively stronger among younger people. This latter hypothesis has stimulated a number of subsequent studies of painters' careers, including Ginsburgh and Weyers (2006), who consider selected Old Master painters, Accominotti (2009) and Hellmanzik (2009Hellmanzik ( , 2010, who consider modern artists, and Hodgson (2011) and Galbraith and Hodgson (2012), who study a sample of Canadian artists. Overall, the results are rather mixed, and the hypothesis has been criticized by many.…”

“…2 Aesthetic dichotomies and European art in the eighteenth century 2.1 Aesthetic dichotomies The Galenson hypothesis described in the Introduction, according to which artists who may be termed ''conceptual'' tend to do their most highly valued work relatively early in their careers, in contrast to those termed ''experimental,'' depends on a particular dichotomy presented by Galenson et al As pointed out by Ginsburgh and Weyers (2006), this is closely related to older aesthetic dichotomies that have been presented by many authors over the centuries in slightly different terms. In Table 1, we have grouped various of these terms for stylistic dichotomies that we have found in the literature and that we consider to represent related ideas with respect to aesthetic style.…”

Age–price profiles for Canadian painters at auction

“…The analysis and interpretations provided for the empirical results obtained in the foregoing papers have not been uncontroversial (see, for example, Ginsburgh and Weyers (2006)), but the empirical results themselves are convincing and, whatever light they may shed on the art history of the periods considered, there is no question that they should be of interest to economists, art collectors, and anyone else who may want to use a hedonic model to arrive at an estimate of the approximate value of a particular art work.…”

Age-Price Profiles for Canadian Painters at Auction

“…Among economists, Galenson et al have been criticized for an analysis which is too one-sided, or "supply-side", and which pays insufficient attention to various other explanatory factors, especially those associated with the "demand side" of the market (see, for example, Ginsburgh and Weyers (2006)). …”