Aging, Creativity and Art: A Positive Perspective on Late-Life
Development explores the strengths and opportunities of old age as
these are manifested by the accomplishments of aging artists, late
artistic works, and elderly arts audiences. The book draws on
scholarship in the humanities, primarily in art history; examines mainly
paintings and painters, both historical and contemporary; reviews
empirical research on creativity and cognition, predominantly from
psychology and gerontology; and presents the author's original studies,
including surveys of art historians, questionnaires completed by aging
artists and arts audiences, and experiments involving judgments of art
by laypersons. The research presented in Aging, Creativity and Art: A
Positive Perspective on Late-Life Development suggests that creativity
continues into the later years; higher-order mental abilities related to
creativity, like imagination and problem-solving, persist until late in
life; and the elderly's physical, sensory, mental, and interpersonal
competencies may be enhanced by engagement with the arts. This work
interrelates the disciplines of science, the humanities, and the arts to
form a synthesis that builds on the strengths of the methods of
quantification of science; the emphasis on the individual in the
humanities; and the expressive and intuitive modes of communication in
the arts. Aging, Creativity and Art: A Positive Perspective on
Late-Life Development critically examines the psychology of
creativity, cognitive development, and gerontology, and will be of
interest to a wide range of professionals and students in these fields.