Do artists become better as they age?

[gruntingslime]

I'd like to hear a few thoughts on this, even if anyone has done some sort of study or read some sort of study on creativity or even just mastery of language etc.

This is a literature forum, but I'd like the discussion to be open to other artists. I notice with literature, for the most part, a lot of writers will produce some of their best work towards the end of their career, but this isn't universal. I know Jerome K. Jerome wrote Three Men in a Boat early on and later in his career, Three Men on the Bummel, being an easily relatable example, seemed to lack so much zest of the first and seemed to me a lot blander. Another example is Flann O'Brien who wrote At-Swim-Two-Birds, I believe it was his first novel, it's generally considered his best, either that or The Third Policeman, which was also written earlier on, then he seemed to fizzle slightly.

Kafka is an example of a writer whose great work is vastly spread out through his career. Hermann Hesse wrote most of his famous novels later on, and his early novels are nearly unheard of. Same with Dostoevsky, it was his last novels that are now considered the classics.

In another medium, film, it seems as if it's generally the opposite, although I realize to work in film you're working under different conditions. But a few examples of what I mean is, Tim Burton, who at the beginning of his career seemed like much more of an artist, whereas his films have recently become much more mediocre. Terry Gilliam, who I greatly respect, did in truth direct much of his greatest work in his early career...

Any thoughts on this?

[Kyriakos]

I think that the crucial factor is how sane the writer remains, and what he had to write about to begin with. Some writers advance their thought, and that shows. Others get burned early on. And some just become mad and die, producing darker works as they go towards the gate of death.

Interestign that you should mention Kafka, since (in my view) he is one of the most tragic figures in literature, an eternal adolescent, and quite mentally ill. But if you read his diaries you will see that he gradually became less and less lucid, and more and more fashioned a sort of mystical examination of his life. Of course this isnt very evident in his works, since i gather they are complete allegories, so little changes there.

[MANICHAEAN]

Writers young or old, we cannot always live with those liberating airs blowing upon our foreheads. We haveto bear the burden of the unillumined hours. I'm not sure if the world we live in lends itself better to the early formative writing of youth, than the conclusion format of age & associated "experience"! Or does anything even begin as we find ourselves floating upon the tide, endeavouring to get a clear glimpse of the stars before we sink!

Sometimes it is not from the experience of age but from beyond experience that the inspiration comes. Sometimes it is not from the "struggle" but from the "rest" after the "struggle" that the whisper is given. Sometimes the voice comes to us, not from the heights, but from the depths.

The truth seems to be that if the clue is to be caught at all, it will be caught where we least expect it. The importantthing is not to let our: theories, principles, convictions or opinions impede our vision.

[David Lurie]

Orson Welles once said something like this: learning the technique is easy, in a couple of weeks you are done with it, the difficulty is to understand how to use it to create works of art.
Welles was talking about cinema, say something like this to an opera singer and (s)he will shoot you :lol:
I hope the meaning of this is clear: there are art forms where the technique plays a minor role and what counts is instinct/talent, cinema and rock music clearly belong to this category, while opera singing and literature and classical music (classical arts as a whole I'd say) are fields where you never stop studying and learning.
This is what makes the difference: where technique counts you will reach heights gettin' older, where technique is superfluous you will be rotten in your late twenties.

[Jassy Melson]

Some writers such as Dostoevsky wrote their greatest works toward the end of their life; others write their great works relatively young. Some writers don't produce anything of note after they reach a certain age. Hemingway for example didn't write anything of note after The Old Man and the Sea in his early 50s, whereas Faulkner was productive up to his death. I think it depends on the author.

[Alexander III]

I think in general its a curve, the peak is reached in the 40's, however there are so many different examples which adhere to individual peaks that its hard to gouge,

[LMK]

As one becomes more practiced in a skill they will most likely become better at it technically. Art; however, requires a talent that goes beyond skill on the part of the artist, and ideally, on the part of at least one other person who becomes the audience for the piece who calls it art, in my opinion.

Some artists will develop a better eye for their craft, others become tired and formulaic, still others venture into other areas away from where they excelled to 'experiment' sometimes this works sometimes it does not, again, in my opinion.

So, bottom line for me is that there is no clear "Yes" or "No" some do, some do not become better as they age.

[Themistocles18]

Interesting question. I think this goes back to the difference between fluid (creativity, novel problem solving) and crystallized (using a knowledge base and acquired techniques) intelligence. Generally speaking, fluid intelligence peaks in the early 20s. Some disciplines lean very, very heavily on fluid intelligence. In mathematics, for instance, you peak in your early 20s. Because while you need crystallized intelligence for mathematics, it's usually possible to learn most of established mathematics by the time you've graduated college- so your ability to produce novelty matters quite a bit and your ability to generate novelty decreases after your early 20s. I don't think this is so much the case for artists. For one thing, there's a lot more to study. The material isn't necessarily harder- I'd say it's probably easier. I'd wager that someone of average intelligence could eventually grasp the toughest literature- the toughest mathematics would probably wreck them. But it simply takes an enormous amount of time to master the breadth of even Western Literature. And by the time you've reached that creative peak? Not likely. Even if you can manage to read 1500 words per minute (incredibly fast) we're talking well over 30,000 hours of reading to "take the canon in". That's probably 2 decades. And that just counts the reading bit- double it if you want to actively study the techniques. So that's a lot of time. Now, of course not every writer needs to "take in the canon" to develop a style. Most don't even try. The people who do are usually critics. But that's the writer's course-work, so to speak. He needs to at least skim it. I would guess that most writers peak in their mid-30s. By then they've taken in a good bit of their predecessors and they haven't slid off the creative slope yet.

[stlukesguild]

There is a marked decline in the work of many 20th century artists as they age... and I speak especially of the visual arts... but I highly suspect this is due to artists burning out from excessive fame and fortune achieved too early.

Titian:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4145/4983909806_1a44f953cc_b.jpg

Rembrandt:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4132/4983909860_ff0c3738db.jpg

Rubens:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4147/4983909960_cb882de797.jpg

Velasquez:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4112/4983910104_0bb98a48d5_b.jpg

Monet:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4086/4983313575_cb4e657224.jpg

Degas:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4112/4983313689_96d9cec140.jpg

Max Beckmann:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4132/4983313721_af445ee7ac.jpg

Matisse:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4092/4983313743_f8d642560b.jpg

These are but a few of the visual artists who were producing their most profound and influential works late in their careers. Michelangelo... having finished the Sistine ceiling and the Last Judgment began work on the dome of St. Peter's in his 70s.

The same can be found with composers. J.S. Bach's later works include some of his finest: the Well Tempered Clavier, the Art of Fugue, Musical Offering, and the Mass in B-minor. Among Beethoven's final works we find the last 5 piano sonatas, the Grosse Fugue, the late string quartets, the Missa Solemnis, and the 9th Symphony. The last years of Mozart's brief life produced The Magic Flute, Cosi fan tutte, the 40th and 41st symphonies, and the fragmentary Requiem. Again... these are but a few examples.

In literature we find that Chaucer did not begin his Canterbury Tales until he was well into his 40s and was probably still at work upon it at his death. Dante's Comedia was also begun when the poet was in his 40s and not finished until his death. Shakespeare's later plays (Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, MacBeth, The Winter's Tale, and The Tempest) atre clearly among his greatest achievements prior to his partial retirement to Stratford. Cervantes completed the second part of Don Quixote immediately prior to his death. T.S. Eliot's The Four Quartets was written when the poet was into his mid-50s.

Undoubtedly, many artists arrive at their most influential works earlier in their careers as they are far more likely to be pushing the limits of innovation and the avant garde. None of Picasso's later works challenged the direction of art quite as much as his Les Demoiselles d'Avignon or his masterpieces of the Analytical Cubist period... but many later works are as great as anything he had ever achieved. By this time, however, Picasso's visual language had been absorbed within the larger art culture so that his recent achievements no longer seem as earth-shattering.