Diving into an Artist’s Mind: The Critical Vs. The Creative

Can an artist be creative and critical at the same time? Is an artist simultaneously a critic? These are questioning a friend of mine asked me a few days ago. I thought about it for a while, and I immediately went into more confusion. I answered yes because artists put a lot of thought behind their pieces and they have deeper meanings that others can get out of them. I answered no because artists do art for the sake of art simply putting their emotional energy into it and making a work of inspiration out of it. Could the answer be a yes and a no? I don’t know. Isn’t creativity driven by intuition and intuition is an experience-based process, so artists would be considered intuitive, right? Not critical. However, at the same time, artists are interestingly critical about their own work when they complete it to look for improvements, areas where they could’ve done better. In the whole process of being creative, thought is put into creating artwork even if it’s in the form of expressing emotions. Isn’t it critical of an artist to be that original and creative? I know, it’s much more confusing than I thought.

Where does this question even come from? My friend was discussing Oscar Wilde with me and told me how his philosophy was that artists weren’t critics, and that critics were more knowledgeable and would take our society further. That’s a very summarized version of it although there’s more detail to his perspective. I found that amusing because I questioned it myself. Artists use their right brain primarily to generate their creativity, however in this process of creating art, would it even be possible to rely simply on the right brain and put no critical thought into a piece of work? Isn’t the fact that an artist expresses their identity, emotions or concepts through art an example of exceptional critical thinking? I mean, the human brain is so complex and no one individual could only rely on one side of the brain to live their whole life hence there are two sides, or could they? An individual with both functioning sides would be using both their analytical thought process and their intuitive, much more creative thought process to understand and comprehend this world. Are emotions inherently stopping people from being critical? Can’t an individual be a rational, yet emotional person? Are rational and critical even interchangeable? Could Oscar Wilde be pointing out a specific form of critical thinking involving the use of analytical skills to comprehend pieces of work, find symbolism, understand the intent of the artist, and essentially get to know the artist through art? Then again, getting to know the author or artist through a piece of work may be very critical, however diving into an artist’s intent behind work rejects that they aren’t critical. People with an intent have a clear objective behind their artwork, a message that needs to be relayed or a part of themselves that needs to be expressed…isn’t that all so critical? Criticizing a piece of work means one understands the artist was critical of their work and intently made it so that it may be criticized. Cool and confusing; but what if the critic finds something in an art wok that the artist themselves didn’t see? Perspective, that’s what its all about. Or is it subconscious of an artist to be putting so much symbolism into a piece of work without even noticing it themselves? Then the question that comes to mind is, well, some artists just paint for the sake of skills or for therapeutic relief. There isn’t thought put into it. They’re just painting or sketching. Nothing but emotions behind it. What about that? See, in the emotions that are expressed, is there a subconscious critical mind behind it? Are artists subconsciously using critical thinking to paint their perspective? And does expressing too much critical interest into a piece overshadow the actual creativity and intuitive thought process behind it? Does critical thinking inhibit creativity? This is back where it started. I question myself more than anyone with these thoughts, and I think it all comes down to what critical thinking is defined as and ultimately understanding what happens in an artist’s mind.