Appendix A: Artistic Genius at Every Age

Malcolm Gladwell has a fascinating article about writing (and artists in general) in “Late Bloomers.” As the subhead says, “Why do we equate genius with precocity?”

Though I encourage you to read the entire piece, the killer quote (comparing child prodigy Picasso with old fogey Cézanne) is this:

“Galenson’s idea that creativity can be divided into these types—conceptual and experimental—has a number of important implications. For example, we sometimes think of late bloomers as late starters. They don’t realize they’re good at something until they’re fifty, so of course they achieve late in life. But that’s not quite right. Cézanne was painting almost as early as Picasso was. We also sometimes think of them as artists who are discovered late; the world is just slow to appreciate their gifts. In both cases, the assumption is that the prodigy and the late bloomer are fundamentally the same, and that late blooming is simply genius under conditions of market failure. What Galenson’s argument suggests is something else—that late bloomers bloom late because they simply aren’t much good until late in their careers.”

The fact that Apostolics must wait on the next generation to find our artistic voice is bunk. This article proves it’s whomsoever will. Will ye?