CREATIVITY AND FEMININE INGREDIENTS IN YOUNG MALE ARTISTS.

Abstract

High school students who won Art Scholarships at New York University were put into three classifications by the art professors on the basis of two-semester Workshop:' ( 1 ) and lacking in creativity, ( 2 ) an indefinite group, and ( 3 ) genuinely group with high degree of promise for serious and original painting. Creativity was distinguished from facility, with the creative category restricted to those emphasizing living, visual and emotional authenticity. The category was used to describe those painting in predominantly imitative way or those emphasizing mere sterile technique. In the study of the 57 Art Scholarship winners, preliminary pilot phase of the investigation suggested that one variable which distinguished the creative male artists from the merely facile ones was the presence of feminine components. Hence 7-point rating scale for this variable was devised and the examiner, not knowing whether he was rating creative or merely facile S, went through the projective technique test responses of Ss in the follow-up phase of the study, making over-all ratings for this dimension. Omitting the female smdents, Ss of the pilot phase, and those in the indefinite, middle group reduced the sample to 23. A single over-all rating for each S was based upon the sex of the projected human images on the Rorschach (particularly Cards I, 111, and V I I ) , sex misrecognition of the figures on the TAT,' and unmasculine components in the Rorschach content such as Spanish Dons bowing, a girlish man, and so on. The results are in the predicted direction and show difference of 1.52 between Ms on the rating scales for the two groups. SDs for the creative and are 1.20 and 1.40, respectively ( t = 3.00, p = .01). In addition to the feminine characteristics, the analysis isolated the following variables as differentiating the creative from the merely facile on the blindly rated scales: high degree of strength, confidence, determination, ambition, and power. Ir is, then, in fusion of the feminine and the masculine that part of the gift of these individuals lies. This integration allows the necessary sensitivity and intuition to combine with purposive action and determination. The end result is the masculine-feminine blend conducive to the capacity for artistry.