Creating Minds: An Anatomy of Creativity Seen Through the Lives of Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham and Gandhi

July 3, 2008 | By Doug In picasso |

Creating Minds: An Anatomy of Creativity Seen Through the Lives of Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham and Gandhi
Customer Review: Best Overview of Similarities in Creative Lives
Many have written about creativity, but few have considered creativity in the context of a cognitive model. Professor Gardner has added greatly to my understanding of what creative people’s lives are like, by focusing on people from a variety of fields (from politics, to dance, to music, to physics, to poetry).

A key lesson for me was that creativity can cause problems for the creative person. Having seen some of the bad habits outlined in this book, we can each see how we can become more creative and also avoid some of the pitfalls. Clearly, creativity can become an obsession, since it turns out to be so pleasurable to creative people. Creative people would clearly benefit from a series of questions that prompt them into considering the relevance and approriateness of their lives. I especially liked how Professor Gardner suggested what additional research should be done. I hope someone is working on these questions, now.

I am a business person, and did not expect to learn much that would help in business. I was happily surprised to find that I did. An important lesson is that creative people need the right kind of emotional and social support in order to be most effective in not only creating more, but also in making their creations more useful for us all. I also recommend CREATIVITY IN CONTEXT and CORPORATE CREATIVITY, as good books for business people to read on the subject of creativity.

But having read many dozens of books on creativity, I still recommend that you start with this one.

Customer Review: An interesting book examining the creative process.
I found this book to be a very interesting read. As a public educator, I a enjoy books that take me out of the framework or box that I view the learning process. Creative Minds made me examine and understand the creative process over a span of a lifetime and mentally note the types of blockers in the early lives of these extraordinary individuals. The book also emphasized for me the differing intelligences in the human race and the conditions necessary for creative breakthroughs. Creating Minds is an excellent reflective read for public educators

Picasso Customer Review: The Most Unusual Biography Ever?
One of the most engaging, stylistically intriguing and honest books I’ve ever read. Stein’s writing is impatient, brusque, passionate and scarily insightful. She offers a real sense of Picasso - the man and the artist - as well as of Gertrude Stein herself. It also provides a tantalising glimpse into the wonderful, romantic life enjoyed by writers, artists and their cronies in early twentieth century Paris. Brilliant. If you care at all about art; life; Picasso; the notion of genius; Paris; indeed, creative or intellectual pursuits of any kind, then your life will be slightly less if you fail to read this book.