I was on Twitter today going through all of the tweets that the people I follow had sent out this morning. I frequently retweet things that I find interesting, beautiful, creative, delicious, etc. So as I was going through these tweets today I found myself to be hitting the retweet button over and over again because of all the interesting things others had posted. Retweeting something on Twitter allows all the people that follow me to then see these same things that I was able to see and enjoy the creativity found through others via me.
I realized as I was doing this today that it was similar to Raphael. Raphaello Sanzio was a Renaissance artist born in 1483. He was sent to be an apprentice for the painter Perugino and while he worked for Perugino Raphael would imitate the style of his master. Turns out Raphael was really good at doing so and it is actually difficult for historians to tell which artist did some of the paintings.
My original thoughts about Raphael were that he wasn’t very creative; he was merely re-doing something that had already been done. Yet here I was on Twitter doing the exact same thing and basking in the compliments I was getting from those tweets. So where’s that line? What is the definition of creativity? Does it have to be something original and never having been done before, or can it be the recreation and addition to something that has already been thought up? I’d love the hear your thoughts!
