Creativity vs. Talent

The following quote, paraphrased from the original by Henri Matisse, is one of the best things I've ever read on creativity vs. talent:

"Creation is the artist's true function. But it would be a mistake to ascribe creative power to an inborn talent. Creation begins with vision. The artist has to look at everything as though seeing it for the first time, like a child.

To create is to express what we have within ourselves. We take from our surroundings everything that can nourish our internal vision. We enrich ourselves internally with all the forms we have mastered, which we set to a new rhythm. It is in the expression of this rhythm that the artist's work becomes really creative.

Great love is needed to achieve this, a love capable of inspiring and sustaining that patient striving towards truth, that glowing warmth and that analytic profundity that accompany the birth of any work of art.

But is not love the origin of all creation?"

For more inspiration read The New Creative Artist.

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