PAINTING OUTSIDE THE LINES: PATTERNS OF CREATIVITY IN MODERN ART, by David W. Galenson. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001, 272
pp., $29.95.

The relationship between the market value of paintings and the chronological point in an artist’s working life when the paintings were produced is the driving mechanism for exploring creativity and innovation in David W. Galenson’s book “Painting Outside the Lines: Patterns of Creativity in Modern Art. The working thesis of this book is that Modern artists have worked creatively and innovatively in one of two distinctly different manners. The terminology Galenson uses to describe these distinct ways of working are “finders” and “seekers.” Finders are artists like Pablo Picasso, who at age 26, make startling and important innovations with little advance indication that such a burst is about to take place. Seekers are artists like Paul Cezanne, who spend their entire working lives engaged in the pursuit of a singular approach or achievement. The differences between these methodologies are carefully presented through the details of the working lives of a variety of Modern artists. French nineteenth century and early twentieth-century artists and mid-twentieth-century American artists are used as the source data for these comparisons.


Matthew Ziff
Interior Architecture Program
Ohio University