Who: David Galenson

Claim To Fame: David Galenson is Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago where his teaching and researching revolves around the life cycles of human creativity. He is the author of several books, including Old Masters and Young Geniuses: The Two Life Cycles of Artistic Creativity, which distills his years of quantitative research on artistic achievement. And his book Conceptual Revolutions in Twentieth-Century Art was the first systematic analysis of the reasons underlying creative innovation. Galenson’s writing and research has appeared everywhere from The New York Times, Huffpost, Vox, The New Yorker, Freakonomics Radio, World Economics Journal, and countless more.

Where To Find David: His Website, Amazon

Praise For David: On Old Masters and Young Geniuses — “[A] really wonderful book. . .There’s something important to be learned about the way our minds work by entertaining the notion that there are two very different styles of creativity, the Picasso and the Cézanne.” — Malcolm Gladwell

When and where do you like to write? Are you regimented about your writing routine?

I have to write in my office. No matter how many notes I’ve taken, in the course of writing I vaguely recall some fact that is key to an argument I’m making. Since I never return books to the library, I know this is probably somewhere in the piles around me; the search through them is frantic, because I’m always afraid I’ll never find it. Need I say that my writing is not regimented?

Do you have any pre-writing rituals or habits before you sit down to write?

I have to feel comfortable with my knowledge of the subject before I begin to write. I love doing library research, because I always expect to discover something exciting in the next book I pick up. I put off writing until I can’t find any more books that seem even remotely promising.

All of your work is research intensive. What does your research process look like? Do you have a system or method for organizing material you may want to use in future writing?

I read endlessly about the subject I’m working on, write out notes and quotes on sheets of paper, and put them neatly in folders. The problem comes when I have to organize the notes, because it is painful for me to make outlines. I always hope that if I know a subject well enough a narrative will occur to me, but this can be a long time coming.

Your research in economic history and your writing on art markets and the economics of creativity revolve around the relationship between age and productivity. Could you talk about some of your findings and the distinction you make in Old Masters and Young Geniuses between conceptual vs. experimental innovators?

The original puzzle came from quantitative evidence on painters: I found that some did their greatest – and most expensive – work very early in their careers, and others late. To try to understand this, I studied the artists individually. One intriguing difference was that the precocious artists almost always made careful preparatory drawings, but the late bloomers did not, preferring to work directly, without preconception. This proved to be related to a difference in goals: the young geniuses made paintings systematically to present ideas they had already formulated, whereas the old masters worked by trial and error, in the hope of making discoveries in the process of painting. If you x-ray a painting by Cezanne, you find layer upon layer of paint, but if you x-ray a Picasso, you usually find a single layer of paint over a detailed preparatory drawing. In time, I discovered that these differences also appeared in other disciplines, and I was surprised by how consistently patterns emerged. An example: conceptual innovators often rely heavily on allusion – think Picasso, Eliot, Pound, Joyce, Godard, Dylan, Lennon and McCartney, Warhol, Bowie, Hirst – whereas experimentalists generally reject allusion and quotation as plagiarism. Many conceptualists work in multiple styles, whereas most experimentalists consider the creation of a personal style as almost a spiritual quest. One-hit wonders are usually young and conceptual – Mary Shelley, Stephen Crane, Paul Serusier, Grant Wood, Meret Oppenheim, Allen Ginsberg, J.D. Salinger, Henry Roth, Jack Kerouac, Joseph Heller, Harper Lee, and Maya Lin, to name a few. These are just some of the differences, and I am still finding more.

How can a writer identify which kind of creator they are? Are there some trademark traits, tendencies, ways of thinking, learning, etc of conceptual and experimental writers?

Conceptual writers often use simplified characters to carry out complex plots, planned carefully in advance. Their books are usually resolved, with clear messages or lessons. Experimental writers are more likely to create lifelike people in realistic situations. They are also more likely to leave their plots unresolved, with ambiguous open endings. The precision of their goals allows conceptual writers to be satisfied that they have achieved a particular purpose, and this can free them to pursue new ideas. In contrast, the inability of experimentalists to achieve their vague goals can tie them to a single problem for a whole career, doing a series of similar works, often revising each work repeatedly.

A writer who recognized himself in this scheme is William Landay. He wrote in his blog: “I am very much an experimental writer. No lightning bolts, no visionary insights, no ‘Eureka!’ Only gradual, uncertain, incremental iterations of idea after idea, draft after draft. I plane my sentences over and over, like a carpenter, yet they never feel finished. No book ever feels completed, always abandoned. And always flawed.” The saxophonist Sam Newsome recognizes that he is conceptual: “there’s a certain finality to each project/album. I don’t feel a need to flesh out the documented work further after it’s been recorded. In fact, after the release of each recording, I immediately move on to the next idea.” He also categorized some major figures in jazz: Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, Wayne Shorter, and Branford Marsalis experimental, Louis Armstrong, Art Tatum, Charlie Parker, Ornette Coleman, Miles Davis, and Anthony Braxton conceptual.

What can one do with the understanding of which kind of artist they are? Are there contrasts between the ideal habits and practices that conceptual and experimental writers can add to their routine?

Conceptualists risk becoming captives of their own early innovations, so they should consider trying to do something completely different, that doesn’t allow them to repeat the same ideas. Conversely, experimentalists should recognize they are distance runners and not try to compete with the sprinters. They should aim to improve their skills over time by tackling similar problems. William Landay wrote that this analysis “helped me understand myself and my own creative method, and it is still a consolation to me.” In spite of his dissatisfaction with the books he has published, “the faith always remains that someday, by rigorous trial and error, I will chisel out a ‘perfect’ book.” The composer Kyle Gann wrote of the benefit of seeing the analysis of multiple artists: “I began to relax about my own composing process…You read a biography of a single artist and it doesn’t really sink in, but seeing so many reinforcing comments in one book is therapeutic.”

What books or writers have most influenced the way you think and the way you write?

My father was a very good writer: he showed me the value of clarity and simplicity. My thesis advisor, Stanley Engerman, reinforced this. He is a meticulous scholar and a very careful reader, and he enjoyed tormenting me by taking my sentences and deliberately misinterpreting them. I understood that the goal was not merely to write so that readers could understand, but to try to write so they could not misunderstand – impossible, but a useful goal in a contentious academic environment. My aim has always been to find interesting new evidence, and to present it simply and clearly. A memorable moment came in graduate school, when I was beginning to do research on colonial economic history. I ordered an unpublished dissertation by a historian named Russell Menard from University Microfilms. He had spent years quantifying primary 17th-century sources in the Maryland Hall of Records, and presented one new result after another in crystalline prose. As I read it, I thought that was the kind of work I wanted to do.

What is your advice to aspiring writers?

A major problem for experimental scholars is learning when to let things go: I always want to add more evidence, and improve the prose. Stan Engerman told me that I should publish a paper when it made a new contribution and didn’t have any obvious mistakes, that I could always return to the subject if I learned new things later. I think this is still good advice.

___________

Ready to create a writing routine of your own?

Sign up now and receive our free guide “12 Essential Writing Routines To Help You To Craft Your Own.”

Learn from the routines of superstar authors Stephen King, Gertrude Stein, John Grisham, Ernest Hemingway, Neil Gaiman, and many more.

Get the free guide here!