Ordinary Small Town Haircuts

There's a well-known photograph of the Masters at TheBauhaus? all standing in a row: Klee, Kandinsky, Gropius, Mies, and the rest. Towering creative geniuses, people who transformed their disciplines (you don't have to like what they did to appreciate the magnitude of their contribution). Anyway, in the photo these incredibly original, creative giants are wearing suits, with white shirts. Stiff collars. Ties, even. Fussy granny glasses and OrdinarySmallTownHaircuts. In fact, they look exactly as you would expect sober middle class professionals in early 20th century Germany to look.

If you can, hold a copy of the photo next to a print of a Klee drawing. Move your eyes from one to the other.

Next, go to your local art college. Find out when the Graduation exhibition is. Buy a drink in the Union bar. Identify the coolest/most outlandish looking undergraduate art student there. Find out their name. When the show comes round, go and look at their work. While looking at their work, cast your mind back to their appearance.

Contrast and compare these two experiences.

This piece seems to suggest that if you want to be really creative, you should be a wearer of OrdinarySmallTownHaircuts. I suspect that a survey of WorldGeniuses would reveal that there exists no correlation between outlandish fashion sense and creativity, one way or another. i.e., many producers of daring art are also daring in appearance, and many are not.

Perhaps I'm missing the point? 'Don't assume that those guys with OrdinarySmallTownHaircuts are squares.'.

Yes, don't assume that.

The piece is not meant to suggest that getting an OSTH will make you creative, so much as that the really creative people often don't waste their talent on trivia like the strands of protein growing out of their heads.

Conversely, far too few profoundly mediocre talents (this page was inspired by my experiences hanging around the art college, I wont say which one, for various non-educational reasons when I was an undergrad) don't realise that there's exactly the lack of correlation you mention. Some seem to be attempting to compensate for their inadequacy as artists by leading carefully exotic lifestyles (wardrobe is the easiest and most obvious way to do this)

There's a remarkable difference between having long hair because you're a poor student, can't afford a haircut and don't care about social norms and having long hair to look like a poor student because you care about social norms.

...the really creative people often don't waste their talent on trivia like the strands of protein growing out of their heads...

I have to say that I think your insecurity is showing. If you want a fancy look go and get one, but you don't need to disparage those that do in order to validate your own genius. <g> Honestly, this is largely rubbish. The truth is that there are no such generalizations as those you are attempting to draw. Many incredible innovators have looked outlandish and many others have revelled in their ability to blend in. After all, Salvator Dali is no less talented than WilliamBurroughs because he was outlandish and Burroughs preferred to look inconspicuous. I think you are reaching to create rules that don't exist. -- RobertDiFalco

Having written the first statement in this section, I'm not sure what the second anonymous statement (italicised) has to do with the first. There's nothing implying that poor students are creative or that creative people are poor students or that people who worry about their haircuts aren't creative or that hair has anything to do with creativity. Actually, my point (partially) was that haircuts aren't an indicator of creativity at all.

I can definitely get next to that point of view. I only took exception with the sentiment that "the really creative people don't waste their talent on strands of hair". Maybe people with fancy attire just enjoy asserting their creativity in all parts of their life, including their appearance. I find that ones look is no baramoter on their talent or creativity either way -- which seems to be what this page started out trying to say. -- RobertDiFalco

Robert, did you not notice the word "often" in the original text (it is ommitted from your (mis) quotation). If I'd made a universally quantified statement, you might have something to except, but I didn't. TheOriginalPoster?

I recall seeing the photo of Magritte for the first time (I had earlier seen photos of Dali, and Einstein, and van Gogh). I was stunned: "How could anyone this ordinary, this 'establishment' looking possibly produce such completely radical paintings? I thought you HAD to have a waxed curly moustache or electric hair or cut off your ear to think those thoughts?" Intellectually I possibly recognized there may not be a connection, but Magritte was the first such "two-sided" person I had actually seen. It still shocks me to see his photo. I think DeeHock is perhaps the most current version of this I know. You should read him. --AlistairCockburn

I always liked this self portrait of the young AlbrechtDurer? in 1493. He reminds me of a few more recent students of art. I think that there is little correlation between hair cut and creativity.

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