What are your thoughts on the conflict between creativity and conformity in esthetics (The arts)?

Question

Is there a basic conflict between conformity (following rules) and creativity (exploring new methods and means of expression)? It would seem no art can be created without some knowledge of technique (tradition), however, tradition is widely viewed as an impedment on creative thought processes, the freedom of the artist and so forth, and that an artist's basic driving force is the will to bend tradition, to review the rules and norms of society.

In the orient, it would seem that the conflict is not as direct. Art and tradition seem to be in better harmony. The martial arts, painting, the art of the bonsai, etc... All of the practitioners are expected to show a deep appreciation of tradition before they can become creative and that their creation should still be respectful of that accumulated tradition.

Answer 1

All art is the manipulation of symbols to express an idea or emotion. The conflict arises from the desire and need for original creation. One must manipulate the existing (traditional) symbols to express a new symbol that is understood as an idea or an emotion. To express this, the artist must make the tradition symbols malleable without destroying it. A face must always remain a face regardless how bizarre it is depicted.

Answer 2

IMO there are some false assumptions in your details.
The conflict exists when there is uncertainty as to the Aim, the main goal. Would you care if your painting and the technique therein was non-traditional if it fetched $250,000.00 ?
What do you see as the creative thought process? The reason I ask is that I just watched the short film done on the Canadian artist, Alma Rumball. She claims she just lets her hand do the drawing, painting, writing, and could be having a conversation at the same time. The work impressed me, yet
she never studied art. I also heard many years ago where Russian art students were hypnotized to paint in the style of many of the great masters and did so with much success. I think the book was called " Psychic Phenomena Behind The Iron Curtain" . I guess this begs the question, what is the relationship between creativity and inspiration? and how do we know that they are not one and the same? Remember the old saying, There is nothing new under the sun? And how about, Necessity is the mother of invention. (creativity?)
Prior to you question, I could not think of a question to post, and lookie here! Am I stepping too far out of the box? Sorry!

Answer 3

There's a definite conflict. At the most basic level, every artist has to deal with the anxiety of influence, that oppressive weight of knowing that you MUST be more creative as to appear to not be conoforming. Tradition is all fine and good but consistent tradition begins to stagnate and so art needs personality or must be approached from a different angle. Imagine if all literary criticism ever had only been approached from a biographical standpoint, so that everytime we wanted to analyze a work of literature, we could only attribute it to corresponding biographical events that ocurred to the author, we wouldn't be able to look at the era he lived in, the syntax of his language, the way he uses language, any political, social, feminist, deconstructionist aspects of the text, none of that would apply because it doesn't exist. Each new critical movement in literature is a new challenge and often can be rejected when first proposed. Deconstructionism and Feminism have both faced terrible scrutiny and ridicule and yet are now 'accepted' forms of criticism when looking at an artistic work of literature. You could also argue that to plagiarize a piece of art is to break away from conformity, if you actively reproduce art and claim it as your own, you are denying that this existed before and in a sense, destroying it's history and taking that piece of art away from it's historical, social and political basis and putting it into your own. It may suddenly become asthetically unpleasant whereas at the time it may have been considered respectful. Also, lowbrow or tasteless art is thought of as 'creative' because it breaks away from conforming standards of what is considered art... The infamous "Piss Christ" photograph (google it) is a good example, it is extremely unpleasant and causes a lot of mixed emotions, but isn't this exactly what art is suppose to evoke? This particular work is considered pornographic yet it still is a reflection of the idea or message that the artist wanted to make. Technique and Tradition are a major factor in determing expression of art but it is possible to (mostly) circumvent these to create something new, the question then would be whether or not that new creation could be considered art or madness. In the end however, you will almost always find "new" art reflecting either Technique or Tradition, truly innovative art will reflect neither and may not even be recognized as art, unless the statement of the artist is clear enough to recognized by the audience.

Answer 4

There are two things that an artist of any kind is trying to accomplish when they create a work of art: (1) to express a feeling or idea that is within them, and (2) to illicit a particular emotional reaction from others.

As far as the former is concerned, rules are fairly useless. Any attempt to constrain the way a person expresses themselves makes their expression less genuine.

However, the latter does call for tradition. Artists have spent many centuries figuring out how to communicate a certain kind of idea or emotion to other people. If you as an artist are trying to accomplish the same goal, it would be foolish not to accept the aid of those who have come before you. Also, arts develop through time much the way that other areas, like science and literature, do. If you ignore the history behind what you are doing, you are likely to simply repeat what has already been done, and fail to bring anything original to your art.

Answer 5

My opinion?

I think this will not be a resolvable debate. The whole point of creativity is to be outside the box, pushing the envelope, (fill in your phrase of choice here). Tradition is an inherited/ customary pattern of thought, action, or behavior so that has no originality to it at all. It's just repeating a habit.

Then you have the issue of taste when it comes to creativity. What about boundaries of taste? Politcal correctness and such? There's a question for you!