Aging, Creativity And Art

This volume 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. It 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.

The research presented in this book suggests that higher-order mental abilities, such as imagination and problem solving, continue into the later years, and that elderly people's physical and mental competencies may be enhanced by engagement with the arts. Lindauer's (State U. of New York) critical examination of the psychology of creativity, cognitive development, and gerontology, draws on his own surveys of art historians, questionnaires completed by aging artists and arts audiences, and experiments involving judgements of art by laypersons. Lindauer's study also draws on scholarship in the humanities, research on creativity and cognition, and examinations of historical and contemporary paintings and painters. Annotation ©2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Doody Review Services

Reviewer:David O. Staats, MD(University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center)
Description:This book attempts to review art created in old age and how creativity changes with age. It covers older painters, writers, and composers.
Purpose:The purpose is to review how artists' (painters, writers, and composers) work and creativity changes as they age in their careers to see if there is such a thing as an "old-age" style.
Audience:The audience here is primarily gerontologists. The book flows from the author's late-life experience of training in gerontology.
Features:This book rambles and lacks clarity. The best part is its bibliography, which brings together a wide-ranging group of writings on art in old age. Except for the cover of the book, there are no illustrations.
Assessment:How wonderful is the art that emerges from old artists, especially when this art says something about aging and those who are old. Who among us is not moved by the Marschallin's Act I monologue in Der Rosenkavalier (...Dear God, why do you let me see my own aging?...) How can we not stand in awe of Verdi closing his life's work with a slightly befuddled old man becoming enlightened in the dark forest at the stroke of midnight (Falstaff ending with a fugue no less!). The artist Alice Neel's unflinching self-portrait showing her dropsy at the end of her life humbles us. I wish this book would have described some of these masterpieces in detail as a roadmap to enlighten the rest of us.