The Art and Creativity: The Creative Inspiration from Pablo Picasso’s Quotes

 When we keep minds flow, release the positive energy, out of this comes a beautiful art, the freedom of choice and the plenty seeds of creativity.

Creativity is everything that one has seen, felt, touched, dreamed. All our experiences are completely reconfigured in a way that mixes up all these "sense and sensitivity." Creative has many faces and creativity has multiple “ingredients.” Creativity doesn’t live inside a box, but a type of out-of-box thinking. So, you have to pull it out of the box and look at it through different lenses. Creativity is more art than science. Here are some creative thoughts inspired by a set of quotes from Pablo Picasso, a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, stage designer, poet, and playwright.

“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” ― Pablo Picasso

Children are a good example of having open-mindedness, curiosity, and joy for exploring because the world is so new for them. They have a better gut feeling or many “aha’ moments as they seem to have a more connected relationship with nature. They are open to unknowns, their intuitive mind can connect the dots boldly to create such flash of insight. Sometimes, a child can instinctively figure out the solution to a problem simpler than an adult! Children are conditioned to imagine, explore, discover, and create with cues from their environment and ability to discover and question it. However, when most of them grow up, they appear to gradually lose curiosity because they know; they also gradually lose courage because they are aware of the consequences. So, they stay within, fear to be judged as “misfit,” and restrain themselves from thinking out of the box, or exploring new possibilities.

“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.” ― Pablo Picasso 

Everything has the rule or underlying patterns, either language, art, the life itself, or an amazing natural world. If we look at languages - the fundamental tools for human communication, there are certain universal features of all languages, like subjects and objects, verbs, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs. These universal features say something about the world. Thus, to be creative, it’s important to first learn those rules for deepening understanding, and then, being innovative is about doing something better than it currently is. It's a mindset. Understanding and learning the rules require a person's ability to grasp or comprehend information and refine it to the valuable insight. How deep your understanding is based on the logic, lenses, philosophy, mindset, as well as the methodology you leverage to interpret things. Still, understanding is only part of the story of being innovative. To be creative, one would have to break down some old rules. Most adults don't change their life radically, they hamper themselves to be creative, not just out of the desire to conform to a set of rules or guidelines but out of fear that they will be seen as the unusual, strange, misfit. Innovators can do both well, as Picasso wisely put: learn the rules with deep understanding, and break outdated rules with courage and determination. Thinking outside the box is all about "rule breaking"; the more "unruly" you are, the more creative you are. No wonder innovators can seemly so easily shape the fresh view, create update knowledge or design new things while most people cannot even get the right angle to see things clearly.

“There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into sun.” ― Pablo Picasso

This quote manifests the significant value of imagination. While imagination is dynamic. It's anything you want it to be. Either being a creative artist or scientist, knowledge only is not sufficient, it's what you do with that knowledge that can be creative, like using your knowledge of something, but in a new context. You have to keep your imagination rolling into reality. Imagination helps to make knowledge applicable in either making the great piece of art or solving problems creatively. Imagination is the fuel for the “Creativity Engine.” No imagination, the engine will not run. The imagination can entertain the seemingly impossible, given the right resources of knowledge, experience, and talent. Creativity often happens at the intersection of imagination and knowledge. With both, a bridge may be created between the current 'impossible' to a whole new 'possible.' The base for thinking and doing differently is exceptional creativity. The base for exceptional creativity is exceptional imagination. And it is an exceptional imagination that moves the hearts, minds, and lives, of all people. Like the Sun, shining through the world.

“Every now and then one paints a picture that seems to have opened a door and serves as a stepping stone to other things.” ― Pablo Picasso 

Creativity is like the fountain spring, the more you tap, the more it flows out. There is more flow of creative ideas, the more is happening, the pie gets bigger, and creativity blossoms. This quote also implies the interconnectivity between openness and creativity. Being open starts at the mindset level, decontaminating conventional thinking and to “think in the bigger box.” People are egoists so, they never confess, they tend to cover the ignorance and weaknesses with exaggerated extroversive behaviors. This is what is called the state of the closed mind. Being open-minded is also about being humble enough to admit known unknown and unknown unknown. Discovery starts with an open mind full of intellectual curiosity and fresh eyes having a broader vision. The clear manifestation of intellectual curiosity is to ask good open questions such as “What if,” “Why not.” “How about,” etc, to stimulate the creative sides of our brains in order to find answers. It is a new way to see and perceive things, and it is a life experience and adventure.

“Art is the elimination of the unnecessary.” ― Pablo Picasso

Creativity process could be sophisticated, but creativity is never for making things complicated, the opposite is actually true, creativity is to advance, but also simplify things. Creativity is often made out to be a nebulous, messy, complicated, tangled thing, and it can be. Creativity process could be sophisticated, but creativity is never for making things complicated. Simplicity is a premium level of complexity. However, in reality, people complicate simple things when they don't have the answers. Either making the art, communication, or other creative work, simplicity is an aspect of “appropriate” abstraction. The judicious application of simplicity can help people create the art which is simple, abstract and thought-provoking. Elegance is such a word to convey simplicity. Simplicity mind is neither equal to single dimensional thinking nor superficial reasoning, it’s about reaching the next level of sophistication and intelligence. The master designers decode complexity and make it simple but purposeful and delightful. Simplicity does not just make the beautiful art, it does make a peaceful mind, therefore, a peaceful life, and a peaceful world.

“Colors, like features, follow the changes of the emotions. ” ― Pablo Picasso 

Our mind evolves different dimensions of thinking, the multitude of thought processes creates a kind of vibration around us. That enthusiasm, energy, and optimism stimulate creativity. Some say creativity is not different 'types,' creativity is like a color spectrum. There are commonalities that are relevant to all colors which reflect the spectrum of light. Such a metaphor connects the dot back to the nature of creativity. Different kinds of emotions like different colors with hue or density are involved to truly become creative. Creativity represents internal cognizance, but emotionally undermined psychological process facilitates to think and behave innovatively. It's a whole spectrum of emotions from the dissatisfaction of the status quo, with the depths of hunting internal self to the passion for creative expression and confident to lead idea implementation. Creativity is infused with an inner cohesion and comes from a vision of uniqueness.

Pablo Picasso is both creative practitioner and theorist. His quotes are insightful to help us understand creativity from different angles. Creativity has many faces. You can put creativity in a box and say it's "all just creativity," or you can pull it out of the box and look at it through different lenses. Creativity is a flow, an abstract and an imagination. When we keep minds flow, release the positive energy, out of this comes a beautiful art, the freedom of choice and the plenty seeds of creativity.

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