Is a Great Soup ‘More Creative’ Than a Good Song or Painting?
Published by Andrew Leigh May 22nd, 2008 in Creativity, Musings & Rants.A first rate soup is more creative than a second rate painting.
Is it?
There are all sorts of ways of looking at this. I guess that certainly the original creation of a ‘first rate’ soup is a very creative act – but what about when you’ve got it down to a fine art (see what I did there?)
Creativity in a Savoury Crust?
Is that more creative? I’m going to use my own culinary masterpiece as an example: my hand crafted turkey pies – a slightly healthier version of an English pork pie – that is, with a hot water pastry crust, and a meat and jelly filling. I’ve been making these pies for 20 years or so – rarely change the recipe but have gradually refined my techniques. I take great pride in my pies and I hope that they are first rate.
Note: tragically and inexplicably I don’t have a photo of one of my pies. Entirely for the purposes of this blog I’ll bake one soon so that you can see (if not taste) one in all its glory.
But is my first rate pie more ‘creative’ than a ‘second rate’ painting? Here’s what I think – NO! And not only that, it’s not even more creative than a ‘second rate’ pie, or soup, that has been made creatively but hasn’t worked out properly.
Cobblers
In fact the whole idea that something ‘first rate’ (whatever that means) is necessarily more creative than something ‘second rate’ is in my humble view a right load of old cobblers.
First of all there’s the thorny judgement of what is first or second rate. But more important is the question of whether someone at the height of proficiency in their own artistic sphere (I’m including cooking in that) is being ‘more creative’ than someone who is setting out on the journey.
And as I’ve said in other posts, making mistakes is all part of the creative process. Do we have to wait until we get it right before we can say to ourselves – now that’s creative? That sounds to me like a great recipe for stifling our joy and freedom to make creative cock-ups, and it adds unwanted judgement about the quality of our creative acts.
So – second rate paintings versus first rate soups and pies?
Here’s a thought: maybe that great 20th century psychologist Abraham Maslow was simply a rubbish painter but first rate at making soup.
Yes – I’ll go for that.
I think Maslow is right about the soup. I see Art as a type of of love, weather it’s music, painting or a turkey pie. If it comforts people, makes them feel like they are not so alone during a crisis, or just makes you laugh then it’s a pure form of love and that is an art to me.
Hi Gaina - yes, I agree with you when you are talking about Art. When I wrote this post though, it came as a very immediate, spontaneous response to the quotation I saw - and that was using the word ‘creative’. I didn’t really pause to consider the linkages with art.
There’s a lot of love goes into making my pies, and my soups for that matter. And though, as I said, I hope my pies are first rate, my soups mostly aren’t - but they do tend to be more creative, in the sense of being experimental and improvisational.
That’s the point I was going for - that there isn’t necessarily a correlation between the amount of creativity that goes into something and the ‘quality’ of the end result. So a ’second rate’ painting can be more creative than a first rate soup, but - a ’second rate’ soup can also be more creative than a first rate soup, painting or whatever.
Thanks for your comment and keep ‘em coming - they’re much appreciated.