With Purpose Success, part 52

Kane, which Welles directed at the age of twenty-five, is widely held to be the most innovative movie of all time. Gates of course put the "personal" in personal computer. The experimental genius, on the other hand, matures over time and achieves greatness late in life-like Clint Eastwood or Louise Bourgeois or Mark Twain. They build on past successes and ultimately learn enough to produce genius-level masterpieces. "In our society, if you talk about creativity you immediately think of the young geniuses," says Galenson. "These are the Picassos and Andy 

Warhols of the world; people who basically just have an idea-usually when they're very young. This is what we traditionally have called genius: the idea that God touches you on the shoulder and endows you with this quality that you don't understand but gives you remarkable insight, and which very often disappears as you get older." But there is such a thing as acquired genius too. It comes after years of learning through trial and error. 

In Galenson's view, learning through experience leads to wisdom, which unlocks the creativity in experimental geniuses. The exact same mechanism is what produces all shapes and sizes of late bloomers-ordinary people who may not achieve fame and recognition but gain personal greatness through achievements that matter to them. He believes late blooming-like wisdom-is available to just about everyone. "Psychologists argue that wisdom and creativity are unrelated; that creativity is for the young and wisdom is for the old," Galenson says. "But this is obviously wrong. Wisdom is precisely the source of creativity." 

An avid art collector, Galenson chanced on his field of study while walking through a gallery one day. He came upon a ten-year-old paint ing that he liked, and a friend cautioned him not to pay the asking price. 

The artist's newest paintings were selling for much less, he was told. To Galenson that seemed natural. A lot of artists' earliest work sells for more because they fall into the conceptual genius category-like Andy Warhol, 

Jackson Pollock, and Jasper Johns. Their earliest work broke with contemporary standards; it was revolutionary and regarded as highly innovative. 

Through the years these artists never found another mold to break; their newer work was interesting, but it didn't have the same impact. So collectors gravitated to their early work, which naturally commanded the highest prices. 

Yet something troubled Galenson. Doctors and lawyers and bankers and many others tend to get better with age and command their highest fees late in life. Shouldn't it be the same with artists? Don't they get better with age? Looking at thirty years of auction data he found that there were indeed many artists whose latest work commanded the highest prices. 

These were experimental geniuses whose peak creativity surfaced only after years and even decades of building on past efforts to create exciting new works. 

Galenson studied the price-age relationship in other creative fields too and found the same pattern. There were always young hotshots who produced their best work right out of the box. But there were vast numbers who just kept getting better and better-more creative-with age. 

The ability to create, to do new things, must be enhanced by age in many people, he concluded. "There's a form of creativity in which wisdom produces innovations," he says. "Every time a young person comes along and does something dramatic and gets rich and famous, people say, 'Well, that's a genius.' When someone shows creativity late in life they say, 'Well, that's really unusual, that's an anomaly. Louise Bourgeois. Anomaly.