The story of creativity: from divine act to the creative industry

Art is the niche of every civilization. Here we use the term ‘Art’ in the broader meaning of the word, which includes a wide range of creative activities that comprise visual and performing arts, architecture, music and literature,. In this sense, art projects a refined manifestation of a culture; an honest representation of the degree of intellectual growth and of spiritual maturity that a people possess. It is through art that a culture can be represented in its totality; it is with art that a culture can preserve its identity; and it is through art that a civilization will be remembered and evaluated, even after its extinction. Creativity is a distinct aspect of all forms of art. Search for something ‘fresh’, ‘different’ and ‘new’ is a fundamental need of a creative mind, who delves into untouched or less explored horizons. The earliest and the most basic step to materialize this need usually comprise an effort from the side of artist to step beyond the established norms; this basic form of creative expression may be limited to experimenting with the appearance of the phenomena – ‘the forms’. At the next stage, which is more sophisticated, the artist experiments with multitude of forms or visual elements in order to create new arrangement of forms, i.e. to develop creative ‘combinations’ or ‘compositions’. A higher degree of creative expression – that I call “creativity with a direction” – takes place when the artist employs his creative skills of form and composition to create a point of focus, that is to direct the mind of the viewer to a specific direction; this could be merely formal or it can be charged with meaning and message. ‘Creativity inspired by spirituality’ is yet another level of creative expression; this level of creativity can be born of two types of participation from the side of the artist: an active participation and a passive participation. The process of active involvement in spiritual creativity is somewhat similar to that of ‘creativity charged with a meaning,’ only the meaning is ‘spiritual’ in nature. The passive involvement, however, as the name implies, is when the artist becomes a tool of spiritual forces; in such cases the artists are more passive than active! They do not decide about the direction, composition or selection of colors and, as a result, are unable to predict even the next movement – leave aside having an idea of the finale outcome! This is because the artists of this kind/level are actually discoverers, and discoverers are not aware of the nature of the discovery before it is discovered. This is the rarest of all types of artistic creativity and the one that old school thinkers adhered to. Creativity today is seen in a totally different light; it is new story, but not necessarily one with a happy ending. From discovery of truth to the industrialization, creativity has come a long way. Art and creativity as a whole, in the steady process of industrialization, have developed into ‘creative industries’ that largely depend for their survival on the financial support of big financial institutions – government as well as private – and, also certainly, on the taste of the masses which, itself, is very much molded by the media. The great emphasis on the emotional- expressive language of art has caused the cognitive and esoteric parts to be almost forgotten. Creativity too, in the process of transformation of the context of what is known as art, has undergone a significant transformation! This paper is a simple sketch of the roadmap of creativity from its first primordial manifestation in the divine realm, passing through a large phase of human history of religiosity, to the age of enlightenment, to the prominence of individuality, novelty and originality, all the way to the dominance of economy and industry. Keywords: Creativity, Art, Region, Industry, Individualit