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In this sense genuine artists are so bound up with their age that they cannot communicate separated from it. In this sense, too, the historical situation conditions the creativity. For the consciousness which obtains in creativity is not the superficial level of objectified intellectualization, but is an encounter with the world on a level that undercuts the subject-object split. 'Creativity' to rephrase our definition, 'is the encounter of the intensively conscious human being with his or her world.'

Rollo May#47

CreativityConnectionWorldAgeContext

About this quote

What does it mean?
Artists are bound to their age; creativity is a deep encounter with the world.
In plain terms
Creativity is connecting deeply with the world around you.
What can you take from it?
Connect deeply with your time and world.

Where it applies

  • artistic creation
  • social analysis
  • living

Putting it to work

  • engage age
  • face world
  • seek deep encounters

Questions to consider

  • What is your age's spirit?
  • How do you encounter the world?

Another view

Artists can also challenge their age from outside.

More from Rollo May

  1. World is the pattern of meaningful relations in which a person exists and in the design of which he or she participates. It has objective reality, to be sure, …

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  2. A dynamic struggle goes on within a person between what he or she consciously thinks on the one hand and, on the other, some insight, some perspective that is …

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  3. Artists encounter the landscape they propose to paint-they look at it, observe it from this angle and that. They are, as we say, absorbed in it. Or, in the cas…

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