Threat of Punishment Kills Creativity in Art, Says Van Gogh's Kin

Parents and teachers often kill children's creativity by threatening them with failure, said Vincent Van Gogh, nephew of the Dutch artist of the same name.

Van Gogh told an audience of 150 at the Fogg Museum that because of this threat many potentially creative people become inhibited and passively conform to the demands of others. Creativity demands independent opinion, not passive acceptance of other people's ideas, he insisted.

He particularly emphasized the importance of learning to perceive the world through one's own eyes, not through the descriptions of ones' parents.

But, he noted, one who does not conform is punished. He cited the example of the dismissal of his 19th century namesake from a Belgian mission for giving all his goods to the poor.

He said that an artist hides himself behind a screen, on which he puts what others expect. We, he said, must look behind the screen to find out what the artist is really like. He quoted Jean Paul Sartre, the French existentialist, as saying that the final phase of understanding a work of art is the "discovery of the liberty of the other fellow."

Van Gogh said that his uncle's life was greatly influenced by a conflict between his early respect for his father and his later discovery that his father was not fully worthy of it. This, he said, caused the painter to become intensely religious and prevented him from being notably successful in painting or other careers until he was 27.