Talent, Hard Work and Late Bloomers
Sunday, November 16th, 2008
Recently, The New Yorker published an outstanding article by Malcolm Gladwell titled Late Bloomers which I briefly touched on at the time in my own article On the Nature of Creative Genius. It’s a common perception in our society that artists, musicians and other creatives require natural talent. Picasso is a prime example, the young Picasso was a gifted and insightful genius of his day producing his first masterpiece at 20 - Evocation: The Burial of Casagemas.
However, contrast the genius of Picasso, a natural talent, to that of Cezanne. It was not talent that drove Cezanne to painting, it was a passion to paint. He lacked the talent of an illustrator and even at 30 he produced mediocre work. Cezanne’s first one man exhibition was at the age of 56 and only because Pissarro, Renoir, Degas and Monet iimplored Vollard to hunt down the relatively unappreciated Cezanne in the town of Aix. If it weren’t for that visit to Aix the work of Cezanne would have disappeared into history. The point is that Cezanne was a great example of hard work, of passion, of what Gladwell describes as the experimental genius who, over decades, works on their skill to become a master. And, Cezanne is the result of many layers of social support including family, sponsors and teachers who enabled his journey of passion.
