Human beings like feeling that they are best equipped for whatever they consider their specialty in life. A feeling of adequacy is always essential to a human heart and mind just for self-gratification rather than utility. Every individual believes that he or she has gained enough experience in a certain field, and does not need to undergo further preparation for something, which is obviously in their capability. Focus on the practice one is comfortable with is so acute that an individual forgets broader thinking, which increases the chance of discovery of new fields, which may present new challenges.
The focus on one field is a result of the satisfaction and contentment that is obtained from such activities. Individuals will get contentment from activities that are not necessarily beneficial to anyone. Some of the activities that most people opt for repeatedly doing without getting bored by their monotonous nature may even be pervasive acts, while other activities are constructive. In his regard, most people have to be compelled to either cease from engaging in a destructive activity while others have to be forced to direct their efforts towards an activity they do not want to engage in on their own will for a positive purpose. The compelling force may be another person or necessity, which is often the driving force behind most achievements among human beings. Sometimes, mere curiosity is the driving force behind new inventions and achievements.
People derive pleasure from an alteration of the perception of any aspect of nature. People will crave to hear news of an event that rarely occurs, and that one that changes the current mood and perception. The mind always gets restless on being subjected to repetitive experiences. This explains the habitual nature of the human being to overindulge in pleasurable activities at all costs.
Throughout the course of human life, all effort is channeled to activities that alter their perception to a more exciting or new dimension. This is the ultimate goal of the ever-increasing range of activities that the human being has integrated into life. In the course of seeking actions that change one’s perception of the world, then, the discovery of new ways of operation and presentation of aspects of life is inevitable. This is what brings about creativity, which is related to how people perceive issues. Creativity mainly relies on the ability of a person to change the perception of other people in a certain discipline. For one to be creative, the ability to generate new dimensions of a single and static aspect of existence amounts to a special gift of creativity. People will hold in high regard the ability to represent an idea in a new dimension rather than treasure the ability to represent the true picture of a phenomenon. This ability to please people’s minds with constantly changing perspectives is what the concept of creativity is basically. It is not necessary that value is added to some work for people to accept its originality, but a change of the way these works are presented to them into a new unique way gives the representation its originality.
New forms of representation of ideas or paradigms constitute creativity. Those who dwell on conservative perceptions of any aspect of existence may have no acclaim among enthusiasts of the field of their operation. New paradigms are nurtured by creativity and are considered the source of the perpetual increase of genres of artwork. The ability to create completely different forms of representation of an object bears new paradigms, from which new genres are created by individuals. Genres have a unique feature in that they contain different pieces of work that have one or more qualities common to them all.
One of the objects that have maintained its value due to the treasure of creativity is the picture. Pictures are objects of fascination to the human being. This is because every picture has its own distinct culture of qualities that may not be seen in any other picture. The credit of creativity in a picture rests on the person who develops the most dynamic and abstract form of its representation. The material on which a picture is set on may not be the subject of people’s fascination, but the enigmatic detail of the picture presents a valuable abstract sense that will keep the human mind changing in an effort to find the best fitting meaning of the details. When comparing pictures that were created by human hand, and those that are created by today’s machines and modern technology, little value is attached to the pictures that are generated by machines since the exact duplication of the image can be done many times over at little cost and within a short time. In contrast, pictures generated by human hand are difficult and sometimes impossible to duplicate to the exact detail. This aspect gives them the value of creativity. A picture, such as a painting, which has been created with great dexterity and precision of the human hand, is regarded to be more valuable. This is because the details of the picture present a continuous subject of fascination to people. The enigmatic effect of pictures by ancient artists is the desired quality of any picture of significant value. This lack of definite meaning by the pictures gives the painting an eternal relevance in the artistic realm. In addition, painting pictures have a myriad of possible interpretations that the viewer could adapt to suit his or her preference. The dynamic perception is a part of authentic creativity.
In ancient times, a human being created images using crude methods on natural surfaces to pass on the message to any observer of the image. With time, new ways of creating images emerged with the advent of colors and paintbrushes. The gradual development of the picture enriched man’s ability to produce original work. The painting was basically used to express one’s feelings, thoughts, or intended verbal expressions. The creator of the image had to be clear on the message that was to be communicated. To fit this purpose, the picture had to be simple and with a definite meaning. This was the height of creativity as conservative people view it to be. Improvement of man’s intelligence led to the development of a new paradigm of picture development, which induced another perception of people towards pictures. This new paradigm included an aspect of entertainment and leisure in the fine detail of the picture. To maintain the leisure aspect of a picture, the artist has to manipulate the way he or she perceives the meaning of the picture into various possible contexts, which keep the picture from becoming monotonous. This demands creativity, and the artist has to develop the skill of creativity, which is the ability to create a work that is always relevant to the viewer of the picture independent of time. Creativity cannot be adopted or inherited from an artist. However, one can learn how to be creative through the dynamic skill of the creation of pictures. Every picture will have unique relevance to different people since perception changes with every individual. Efforts to create a similar effect to that of the original pictures created by earlier artists fail to match the original copies’ artistic value because the perception of people regarding the copies cannot be similar to the original copy’s effect.
The advent of technology, where modern machines have taken over the art of artistic picture creation, has a great impact on the value attached to the picture. Some modern equipment has a remarkable ability to create high-quality images. A modern digital camera is able to produce a vivid representation of an object. When compared to the ancient paintings, the modern image gives more relevant information and evidence of the setting of the image, while the ancient images are subject to distortion of meaning by the artist in an effort to express his or her perspective of the object.
The artist may also have tried to give a new perspective to the image to influence the general attitude of the viewer towards the image. Despite this, modern images with more material utility are of less value to people since they present a limited range of possible perspectives and interpretations. The images present a direct and precise view of the object or scene in question. People with the capability to produce the most abstract images with computer technology are not regarded as creative people. The image does not represent the artist’s feelings, perspective, and opinion while creating the painting. This assumption is usually a result of people’s variable interpretation of the issue of creativity.
The level of creativity cannot be ascertained for any individual artist. Creativity is a result of the judgment of one’s work by the people. In this regard, creativity does not have a standard value, and most people will not agree on the definition of the true creativity of an individual. New paradigms of working standards of art have various different parameters of gauging creativity. Consequently, creativity depends on the genre of the artwork and the people that are the audience of the products of that genre. The audience of one genre may not recognize the creativity of artwork of another genre since familiarity is key to interpreting the quality of the artwork. The only people who are able to gauge the artwork of a certain genre are the people that have taken interest and understood the particular genre in detail.
An effort to generalize the essence of creativity takes us to the standards that are used in the modern-day to gauge the quality of the artwork. Some people may relate the difficulty with which it has taken the artist to develop certain artwork to quality. When this mode of gauging artwork is used, the artwork that is most difficult to achieve is regarded as the most creative work since the work consumes the greatest effort in comparison to rival work. Another way that is used to gauge artwork is the frequency of appearance of other works of similar detail and quality. If an artwork of a particular genre is rare, some of the observers may consider the work to be of more creative value than other work that is common. This has led artists to direct their efforts towards creating unique pieces of art to please the observers. The created pieces do not necessarily contain any intended meaning or expression of the artist’s feelings.
The art of painting is the most affected by this trend as the artists of the industry struggle to attain a high status among contemporary professionals in the field. In addition, the artists have slowly drifted from the expressive artwork of the ancient and recent past and adopted the production of abstract art, which presents the observer with the unnecessary burden of interpretation. Although it was difficult to append any fixed meaning to the artworks of the past, the paintings gave the observer the true picture of the mood and the surrounding of the painted object. The quality and creativity of the work of art are judged according to the ability of the picture to present the details of the setting accurately. Furthermore, the creativity of emerging paradigms of picture development technologies is not comparable to painting and other past methods of picture creation. Conservative picture enthusiasts may not consider modern digital pictures, which do not exist on any solid background to be viable artwork for evaluation of any kind.
In the modern world, genres of picture art vary from those that represent the actual scene to those that have undergone digital enhancement. In addition, more artistic painting culture is still deeply embedded in modern culture. The emergence of numerous new genres of pictures is the cause of the current confusion in gauging the quality and creative component of the modern pictures.
In conclusion, it is evident that the artwork is more dependent on the perception of the observer. The concept of perception is dynamic. Various planes of interpretation are possible when evaluating genres and creativity in the artwork. Perception is itself a unique individual feature in every person. The nature and orientation of the observer’s perception largely depend on the social environment from which the observer lives. The experiences of the observer’s life and the kind of nurturing that the observer has undergone are the determining factors of the observer’s perception. Moreover, perception may be only be said to be in the right plane in a certain context. Thus the decision on the perception that is most apt for the particular art of work rests with the observer. In picture development, the creativity of the artists is always debatable among the observers.