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Chuck Close on Creativity, Work Ethic, and Problem-Solving vs. Problem-Creating
- shuaib 14y agoLeonardo da Vinci was a chronic procrastinator. Ironic?
- slurgfest 14y agoThere were better artists, and better engineers, but he certainly had a fertile imagination, and who knows, maybe freedom of schedule was part of that.
- pknight 14y agowho were better artists, engineers during his time?
- slurgfest 14y agoI don't see the purpose and don't have the time to have a long, detailed argument about this, particularly when you have begun by putting the words "during his time" in my mouth. The supremacy of Leonardo is contentious and shouldn't be taken as dogma. If you want to become an excellent engineer or artist then you will probably be better served by getting educated, and logging many hours in progressively more difficult jobs, than procrastinating and dithering. Anyway, most people don't have the luxury, and will only get anything interesting done if they put in serious focused effort.
- pknight 14y agoI know about Michelangelo and Raphael - both painters, but those three are considered to be in the same tier. I don't know any engineers that were considered better in his day. Da Vinci is obviously famous in the history books so it would be interesting to know more about his peers, especially if they surpass him in certain domains.
- latinohere 14y agoSo basically you are being called out and finding no way to defend your statement now you are acting all high and mighty.
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- asmithmd1 14y agowhen Leonardo was young he sketched Brunelleschi's machines for lifting a bronze bell to the peak of the cathedral dome he also built: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunelleschi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunelleschi
- latinohere 14y agoStill not as impressive as Davinci whom had very exact sketches of anotomy almost second to none during his time. Not to mention his sketches of flying machines. You need multiple artists and engineers to match all of Davinci's talents.
- fluidcruft 14y agoDo you think da Vinci performing and documenting dissections is strong evidence of his procrastination? FYI my six year-old can also draw machines that can't actually fly.
- jules 14y agoIt is often claimed that Leonardo da Vinci was an all-round genius. In the areas that I can judge he was an amateur at best (mathematics, physics and engineering). He did not contribute anything new to mathematics and physics, and I don't see any evidence that he even understood any mathematics or physics of his time. Hardly any of his "engineering" actually worked (he was an excellent illustrator however). Whether he was a good artist is of course subjective.
- pknight 14y agoI'm confused at why some people here are going out of their way to make Da Vinci's achievements sound trivial in the most fuzzy ways without providing any actual clear facts. 'he did not contribute anything new...' The truth is much of his work was lost and/or only discovered later, so by the definition of 'contributing' to the direct development of particular fields, it wasn't nearly as impacting as it could have been. I don't see how that reflects on his 'genius' in any shape or form. Instead it demonstrates ignorance and it's a point that someone who actually is just a little read up on Da Vinci wouldn't make. We only have a fragment of his work documented today, and just on that alone, his brilliance in the many fields he was interested is clearly observable. 'he was an excellent illustrator'... That's like looking at his anatomical drawings and concluding he's a great illustrator without really understanding what he was drawing. Only fairly recently has it been discovered exactly how well Da Vinci understood the workings of the aortic valve and blood flow. He used similar methods of flow visualisation that researchers used to make similar findings about the working of the heart in the 1990s (source http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00348-002-0478-8?LI=true#page-1 http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00348-002-0478-8...). It took over 500 years for the field to catch up in that respects. He figured out why the sky appears blue (requiring understanding in optics and physics), the cause of heart disease, created some of the first robotics. If Da Vinci's work was accepted and published out in the open during his time, his impact on several fields would be highly influential. 'Hardly any of his engineering worked' For a better appreciation of his engineering prowess, maybe check out some of the many attempts to replicate his machines. Granted some sketches (which is what we're left with) don't work as is (if that's what you're expertly judging), but as is the case with engineering, you learn by iterating designs and testing real models, a luxury not given to Da Vinci for each of his many projects. (And I wonder why people keep replicating his work if he was such an ordinary engineer) A lot of those experiments to replicate have been made into documentaries and are good fun to watch. Here's an interesting attempt to reproduce his diving suit design http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjzZ1-Plgjs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjzZ1-Plgjs.
- east2west 14y agoI don't want to get into a pissing contest but just to point out there are people equal of him in the versatility and greatness, such as his great rival Michelangelo, who is also a great sculptor and great architect. Da Vinci's work as a field engineer impugns his character as a shiftless ingrate who laid siege to his home city that did nothing but adoring and honoring him. Compared to Michelangelo, who grew up poor and labored under severe constraints, Da Vinci had a much easier life.
- pknight 14y agoNow you're just taking the piss:)
- pknight 14y agoHe was notorious for not finishing projects, or finishing them late; but that's not the same as procrastinating by browsing reddit all day, he got a hell of a lot done.
- bgilroy26 14y agoI agree, the idea that Leonardo's works poofed into existence doesn't add up.
- ky3 14y ago"For inspiration to strike, it has to find you working." -- Author?
- asmithmd1 14y agoPicaso: http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/30296-inspiration-exists-but-it-has-to-find-you-working http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/30296-inspiration-exists-but...
- gruseom 14y agoThat site isn't reliable for checking quotes. The only one I know of that tries to be comprehensive and accurate is Wikiquote, and according to it this line isn't attributable to Picasso: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Pablo_Picasso http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Pablo_Picasso.
- chrisguitarguy 14y ago"Show up and get to work" is a large part of Steven Pressfield's The War of Art [0] as well. 0. http://www.stevenpressfield.com/the-war-of-art/ http://www.stevenpressfield.com/the-war-of-art/
- jongold 14y ago+1 for Steven Pressfield. I read Turning Pro first after this excerpt on 99u and loved it; The War of Art was cool too but kind of cringey & self-helpy in places. http://99u.com/articles/7192/Are-You-Trapped-in-a-Shadow-Career-The-Artist-vs-The-Addict http://99u.com/articles/7192/Are-You-Trapped-in-a-Shadow-Car...
- drzaiusapelord 14y agoUgh, I tried reading that a few years ago. Its pretty much a schlocky self-help book with large doses of new age religion in it. I guess whatever works for Steven Pressfield, but that doesn't work for me. This website has everything that book has, and more, without the awkward self-help spiritualism that's so popular: http://gapingvoid.com/2004/07/25/how-to-be-creative/ http://gapingvoid.com/2004/07/25/how-to-be-creative/ Also, if you're "busy" reading /r/getmotivated and books like these you're not actually doing work. You're reading about doing work. These advice guides are traps and time wasters in themselves. Good in small doses, but after a point, they're just as bad as watching TV.
- vijayr 14y agoMaria Popova's blog is awesome. Somehow, she always finds those little known (or unknown) books, quotes etc
- delambo 14y ago(This sounds ranty, but...) I'm one of the odd developers that doesn't obsess over tools. I worked with four different editors, last year - vico, vim, sublime, and eclipse - and I can't say that I'm attached to any of them. I don't complain when I can't use my favorite vim or sublime shortcuts (I don't even know a lot), and it doesn't phase me when I have to hack some code on my 13" MBP instead of my 24" monitor at work. Contrary to what most think, a developer that obsesses over their tools doesn't necessarily make them a good developer. "Show up and get to work."
- thirdtruck 14y agoAgreed. I've knocked out hundreds of thousands of words of novel on my netbook in vim. Having only low-end hardware actually helped me focus.
- daeken 14y agoI'm actually in the market for a typewriter right now, for exactly that reason. I'm setting up a room in my new house with nothing but a desk for a typewriter, a chair, and a sound system.
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- thirdtruck 14y agoI could see that helping. It seems like transcription will prove a serious pain, though. More importantly, Linux on an old laptop could still support Dropbox. I would have lost a lot of work to a dead hard drive just last week if not for that. It only takes one leak or one energetic puppy to destroy a paper manuscript.
- daeken 14y agoI'm likely going to hire someone to scan/OCR and fix up my pages. It'll likely only cost me a few grand for a whole novel -- a drop in the bucket compared to good editors and all that. But that's assuming I actually manage to write in the first place, which is a pretty big leap!
- thirdtruck 14y agoIf I learned anything from NaNoWriMo and from Stephen King's "On Writing", the labor counts much more than creativity. My 400,000 words of novel-writing (and counting) might only contain a few gems, but it contains far more than the empty page of someone still waiting for inspiration to strike. Sitting down and pounding out whatever you can for an hour or two a day will make you a successful writer faster than anything other than actually writing.
- SatvikBeri 14y agoDerek Sivers has another good article on this: http://sivers.org/qlq http://sivers.org/qlq I think the general 10,000 hours theory suggests that for the first ~2,000 hours of a new skill, all practice is deep practice (exact # of hours depends on the skill, of course.) That means that for the first few years, quantity of practice is more important than anything else. You'll eventually hit a plateau and need to practice in a different way to continue improving, but that will only ever apply to a few skills throughout your lifetime.
- thirdtruck 14y agoThat makes sense. Amusing how it fits so well into the 80/20 rule, too. One might need those 8,000 additional hours to level-up into the next Tennessee Williams but - as emphasized in 4-Hour Chef and elsewhere - just 2,000 hours puts your far beyond 95% of the world.
- famousactress 14y agoNick Cave's said very similar things about inspiration/creativity as well... http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=MBqWikfETcM#t=31s http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v...
- igorgue 14y agoI can see the CEO of startup "X" printing this article and showing to their "whiny" developers so they stop asking for a better work environment where their boss doesn't try to micro-manage them all the time and distract them. It seems like he doesn't care about when he works, but he has long uninterrupted work times, which is great, and it's what most developers ask for.
- dwj 14y agoAnd then the employees of startup X would tell the CEO that they should be working for 6 hours a day rather than 16.
- noblethrasher 14y agoElizabeth Gilbert (authored Eat Pray Love) had some similar thoughts in this fantastic TED talk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86x-u-tz0MA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86x-u-tz0MA
- brudgers 14y agoMy neighbor, Nan, is a working painter. She starts about first light. Getting started in the morning is a habit. I read Vonnegut's biography, And So It Goes. He'd been developing his novel about Dresden for nearly two decades before it became Slaughter House Five. He wrote most every day, just like any other job.
- neilk 14y agoIt's a good point, but you should also put it in context with Chuck Close's monastic dedication. Unlike a lot of artists, he seeks out constraints. Often times he starts out by closing off options, and then seeing what scope for creativity is left. For instance, he's done a zillion self-portraits. He thinks his face is uninteresting, so he can explore pure technique. (Also, I guess he's always available as a model.) Perhaps this is all part of making creativity a predictable thing - he doesn't get lost in infinite options.
- achompas 14y agoI'm a big fan of Twyla Tharp's "The Creative Habit" for one reason: it completely does away with the whole mystification of "creativity" as some gift from a divine source. The plot is simple: creating stuff requires work. Figure out how you work best, then work. End of story. Anyway, I'm a fan. It cured me of all inspiration-seeking behavior. * http://www.amazon.com/The-Creative-Habit-Learn-Life/dp/0743235274/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1357159577&sr=8-1&keywords=twyla+tharp http://www.amazon.com/The-Creative-Habit-Learn-Life/dp/07432...