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Rural Mental Health & Family Relationships

Creativity Extends Into Old Age

May 17, 1999

Does victory always go to the young? Is older age a state of decline from former heights and creative capability? Dean Keith Simonton, a psychologist at the University of California at Davis says no. He has researched the relationship between age and creativity. Here are some of his findings:

1. The decline in creativity after a mid-life peak is not substantial. On the average, the rate of creative output in the seventh decade drops to about half the rate at the peak of one's career. Even people in their 80's can expect to produce notable creative works. Creators in their 60s and 70s, even at half the rate of their former productivity, will be generating more ideas than creators in their 20s. Someone once said of George Bernard Shaw, "His mind at 83 isn't what it used to be. But it is still better than anyone else's."

Among artists, Cervantes wrote the second part of "Don Quixote" in his 68th year. Verdi composed "Falstaff" in his 80th year. Titian painted "Christ Crowned with Thorns" when he was nearing 90. Among scientists, Laplace completed his "Celestial Mechanics" when he was 79. Humboldt finished "Cosmos" when he was 89.

2. Creativity doesn't have to stop with disabilities. Bach and Handel continued to compose despite late life blindness. Beethoven composed the masterpieces of his famed "third period" while deaf. Renoir was so disabled by rheumatism that he was forced to have a paint brush tied to his hand and eventually had sculptures executed by dictating instructions to an assistant. Matisse, in later years, was forced to work from a wheelchair with a crayon attached to a long bamboo pole. Galileo worked in his 70s while blind.

Creative people manage to adjust to less physical prowess by the use of assistants, research teams and other colleagues who assist with the tedious aspects of the work.

3. Career age contributed to the decline of creativity, not chronological age. Decline of creativity isn't due to a loss of motivation or intellectual capacity. People who start their careers at older ages extend their creative output into late life. People who enter a career late have much longer late-life productivity.

Chevreul, a chemist known for his work on fatty acids figured he was starting to get old at 90. He switched careers. At 102, his last published work appeared in a field he helped start, gerontology. Many "late-bloomers" achieve the pinnacle of their careers near the end of their lives. If the creative potential is there, the process of developing and unfolding of this ability takes hold. It has to come out.

4. Loss of creativity depends on the field of study and whether a decline takes place at all. Lyric poets and theoretical mathematicians peak early. One study showed activities of scholars such as geologists peak in their 50s with a barely perceptible decline thereafter. Even if a particular field favors the young, a mid-career change can revive creative vitality. Coleridge began his career as a lyric poet, but in later life became a literary critic and philosopher.

5. How creative an individual is at the end of a career depends on how creative he or she was at the beginning. The most creative people have a track record of starting early, having high output, and producing major contributions much later in life.

Goethe became world famous in his early 20s and yet was applying the finishing touches to part two of "Faust" when he was 83. Bach started composing in his early teens and was dictating from his death bed in his 60s the finale chorale that closes the "Art of the Fugue." Mozart and Schubert died young. Had they lived longer, their landmark contributions would have surely rivaled or surpassed Beethoven.

6. The more quantity you produce, the more chances for a creative or quality contribution increase. Those who have produced the most total works also have the strongest tendencies to generate the most masterpieces as well. Auden, talking about prolific poets said, "The chances are that, in the course of a lifetime, the major poet will write more bad poems than the minor."

Elderly individuals may produce fewer notable creations but they are also proportionately producing less rubbish as well. If the level of analysis is a single product, an individual in his or her 80s has about the same odds of having an impact as a person in their 40s or even 20s.

"Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, it more powerful in the mature than in the young." - W. Somerset Maugham

7. Creativity can undergo a resurgence in later years when awareness of mortality inspires a rededication to their creative pursuits. Simonton has found a second peak of productivity in the late 60s or 70s.

Simonton studied the last works of 172 classical composers. As they approached their final years, they produced compositions that are more brief, have simpler and more restrained melodic tones but are high in aesthetic significance. They put their all into their last artistic testament, their "swan song," yielding noteworthy creations. "Write as if you were dying." - Anne Dillard

Everyday creativity follows the same pattern as monumental creativity. We can be creative in our later years. Each of us, no matter how old we become, can reset our clocks by tackling something new. Part of the joy in this world is to begin - again.