Creativity is structure

The usual view on creativity

It is often regarded that creativity is a spontaneous process unbounded by rules and structures. However, I beg to differ. There is absolutely no evidence that this is true, while all the evidence points in the opposite direction.

The structure in creativity

Creativity and the creative process is embedded in structure, in fact the best creative works out there are full of structure. Without structure you can’t have something meaningful or significant. In nature there are certain rules usually referred to as laws, that work together to create human beings. If these rules didn’t exist, we might as well be a clump of flesh. Certain natural rules, structures and laws, dictate a certain end result, be it a human, insect, fish or any other type of organism or matter. Without this structure lurking underneath the surface, you cannot create something meaningful. Even if you could still argue that some meaningful things have been created randomly, I could still argue that most of the creative works created by people are not of a random process. Or even if something created randomly looks meaningful, it looks meaningful because it displays a certain pattern meaningful to us. 

image

 Every type of creator, be it an inventor, musician, painter, poet, novelist, writer, logician, mathematician, sculptor and so on, follows a structure. A certain set of rules, that allows them to create something meaningful. We could therefore perhaps also argue, that the most creative people are the ones who can utilize these set of rules to their full potential. In fact, we can then say that the people who are most proficient with structure and rules are the most creative! Creativity is not some kind of cosmic muse which whispers in your ear, creativity is a process. Even if you get inspired by something, that inspiration also follows a certain pattern, for instance the combination of two elements is a pattern often displayed by creative people e.g. clothes + duck = duck clothing.

The works of Leonardo Da Vinci whom is regarded as an extremely creative individual is full of structure. Leonardo spend most of his time learning the underlying structure between these images rather than randomly coming up with ideas. Without these structures, some ideas will simply not even be possible to emerge. Leonardo could draw humans in the most beautiful way, because he knew the underlying structure of the human body. He learned how certain muscle shapes interact with lightning. Creative people are incredibly hard working people and not some mystical race bestowed by the gift of creativity! Only someone who has tried something creative in their life, will understand that this is true. 

image

image

Leonardo is however, not even the tip of the iceberg, there is a vast ocean of examples out there of creative works that follow a certain structure. Bellow is Mozart. 

image

Beethoven! 

image 

Picasso! 

image

Game Art and Coge

image

 Story writing! 

image

Above is the heroes journey, the best novels use this pattern in their stories!
The incontrovertible logic is simple, to create you have to first understand.