A Comment on Gray's "Paradoxes in Western Creativity"

Abstract

In his paper on Paradoxes in Western Creativity, Charles Edward Gray (1972) has produced historical and statistical data which are interesting but contribute very little toward explaining causes of creativity. Gray's choice of terminology illustrates a prevailing tendency to relate artistic genius to nationality. He ascribes creative act of individual artists to whole nations, by using phrases such as German artistic output, English weakness in music, Scottish creativity, the French record, Italian creativity, and so on. His terminology assumes existence of a nationalistic motivation in art, as when he writes, Spain produced great painters, and the Dutch and Spanish achieved their great periods of art. And it is evident that Gray is gung ho for all out effort by nations to produce more and better art when he speaks of .. . our efforts to increase creativity, (677) and of evoking an equal maximum (687). Is creativity a product that can be increased, or evoked, like mass-produced automobiles? Is this possible? Is it desirable? Would resulting product be truly creative? Or would it not be like twentieth