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Changing Perspective An A Aaopticala Aa Approach To Creativity Stoyan V Sgourev Full Chapter PDF
Changing Perspective An A Aaopticala Aa Approach To Creativity Stoyan V Sgourev Full Chapter PDF
âÂ■Â■opticalâÂ■Â■ approach to
creativity Stoyan V. Sgourev
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Poetics 89 (2021) 101581
Poetics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/poetic
A B S T R A C T
The paper proposes an “optical” approach to creativity, involving a modification of the way reality is viewed. Perception is notably absent from
sociological accounts of creativity, examining practices of recombination embedded in social relations. Drawing on the work of Michael Baxandall, I
propose a framework where creativity emanates from the disruption of “structures of attention”, allowing to see common elements in uncommon
ways. The mechanism of disruption transpires on the billiard table, when contact between two balls provokes the repositioning of other balls,
modifying distances and angles of visibility. Creativity results when actors use someone else’s solution to think through their own problems,
provoking reinterpretation of established ways of doing. The mechanism is illustrated with discussions of El Greco and Paul Cézanne. The
framework builds on the growing sociological interest in social optics, indirect influence, reverse causality and endogeneity. It provides opportu
nities for meaningful interaction between art history, network research, neuroscience and the sociology of creativity.
“The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something.” John Ruskin
1. Introduction
Scholarship on creativity is increasingly interdisciplinary, diffusing to sociology, organizational and cognitive sciences from its
traditional psychological base (see George, 2007; Hennessey and Amabile, 2011; Godart, Seong, & Phillips, 2020). Common across
disciplines is the understanding of creativity as a configuration of elements that are rearranged and connected in ways that are not
obvious (Tarde [1903 (1890)], Godart, Seong, & Phillips, 2020). In the combinatorial view, actors borrow elements from each other to
create something unexpected (Simonton, 2004). But it is also recognized that creativity is not only about connection: it also involves
imagination, playing with possibilities (Lumsdaine and Lumsdaine, 1995: 14). Imagining involves recognizing a relationship between
two things that others do not see or recognize (Amabile, 1996; Fong, 2006). Preceding connectivity is the ability to identify dis
crepancies and opportunities, to “see” elements and patterns that others do not (Berns, 2008).
To “see” is one of the more complex verbs in the English language, as it encompasses several activities, including to “perceive”,
“become aware of” and to “understand”. The concept of seeing as analysis and representation has a storied history in philosophy and
art. For Plato and Aristotle, the eye was the most important of the five senses and the analytical master of visualization. For Leonardo,
the most reliable source of knowledge was looking at real things and phenomena. His diaries and sketches attest that he did not rely
merely on “seeing”, using the eye as a photographic tool. For him, seeing in an analytical manner was a key step in the process of
creation.1 His goal of seeing as “understanding” could be realized only through the analysis of vision and of the workings of the mind
(Kemp, 2004).
It is, therefore, surprising that issues of perception and vision tend to be absent in literature reviews of creativity research (e.g.
George, 2007; Hennessey and Amabile, 2011; Godart, Seong, & Phillips, 2020). Tellingly, perception is mentioned among the
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.poetic.2021.101581
Received 24 April 2020; Received in revised form 27 May 2021; Accepted 2 June 2021
Available online 17 June 2021
0304-422X/© 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
S.V. Sgourev Poetics 89 (2021) 101581
consequences of interest in the sociological study of creativity, but not among its antecedents, as an explanatory factor (Godart, Seong,
& Phillips, 2020: 490). However, developments in neuroscience testify to the fundamental role of perceptual processes in creativity.
New visual stimuli or an unfamiliar environment serve to jolt the attention system and force the brain to start reorganizing patterns of
perception (Shimamura, 2013). It is recognized that when the brain has a difficulty predicting what would happen next is a potential
source of new insights (Chatterjee, 2013). Many of the great innovations began with a change in visual perception; key insights were
triggered by visual images (Berns, 2008). Visual perception is connected to personal experiences; these shape the formation of neural
networks that, on their turn, influence perception and behavior (Onians, 2007).
This paper articulates an “optical” approach to creativity that integrates cognitive processes of perception and vision relevant to
sociological analysis. It starts with the assumption that the primary form of creativity involves a modification of the way in which
reality is viewed (Cohen 1998: 44). As Schopenhauer (1851: 93) famously observed, the problem is not so much to see what nobody has
yet seen, as to think what nobody has yet thought concerning that which everybody sees. This implies that creative insight derives from
seeing common elements in uncommon ways. One does not see the same thing, because one is not looking in the same way or is not
looking from the same viewpoint as others.
In articulating the complex perceptual game underlying the identification of new possibilities I draw on the scholarship of Michael
Baxandall. His work on the social factors of perception and the interplay of materials, evaluative principles and styles in art production
(Baxandall, 1980, 1985, 1988) is increasingly featured in sociological research (e.g. Tanner, 2010). But I develop two aspects of his
scholarship that have attracted little attention by sociologists so far – his model of “reversible” social influence (Baxandall, 1985) and
his exploration of “structures of attention” – patterns of “seeing” and “not seeing”, of co-existing light and shadow (Baxandall, 1995).
Baxandall never formulated a theory of creativity but such is implicit in his studies, analyzing mechanisms of perception and influence.
I argue that these mechanisms contribute to an optical perspective on creativity that connects to recent developments in the sociology
of culture and network research. A key objective of this approach is to facilitate exchanges between sociology of creativity, art history,
social psychology and neuroscience.
The sociological study of creativity examines how the circuits of influence between actors structure their combinatorial activities
(e.g., Collins, 1998; Burt, 2004). It remains debatable whether high or low degree of social connectedness is more conducive to
creativity (Cattani, Colucci, & Ferriani, 2016), but the prominence of connecting practices in creativity is uncontested (Godart, Seong,
& Phillips, 2020). Yet, other research traditions tend to prioritize cognition at the expense of connection. For example, Simon (1985)
viewed creativity as a type of problem-solving behavior that requires a deliberate break from routine and search for alternatives
outside the existing domain. Organizational scholarship and neuroscience document processes of disruption and repurposing of
cognitive routines and schemas (e.g., Ocasio, 2011; Berns, 2008), underlying the emergence of novelty. The assumption here is that
perceptual processes precede the connecting practices that focalize the sociological approach.2
There are sociological accounts that are accommodating to cognitive processes, embedding cognition in social structures and social
processes (e.g., DiMaggio, 1997). An excellent example is the research stream on “social optics” (Zerubavel, 1997), postulating that
perception is not “objective” in nature, proceeding in consistent tunneling through “socialized” minds. Perception is conditioned by the
specific lens through which we observe and the way others around us perceive (Zerubavel, 1997, p. 23). Recent studies attest that the
perception of visual stimuli is contingent on social markers, such as status or expertise – the degree to which people internalize relevant
cognitive schemas used in social evaluation (e.g., Sgourev and Althuizen, 2014). The “social-embeddedness” of perception implies that
the ways in which we perceive objects and infer relationships between them is structured by cognitive schemas (Rossman, 2012) and
by our position in networks of social relationships (Zerubavel, 1997). It is in this cognitive-relational space that can be positioned the
model proposed by Baxandall (1985).
Baxandall’s scholarship acknowledges the salience of social relations in creative advances, but the primary question for him is not
whom the actor is connected to, but whom that actor pays attention to. The “structures of attention” in a field – who pays attention to
whom, overlap only partly with the networks of relations. Actors pay attention to those who are socially proximate, but also direct part
of their attention to socially distant actors who are relevant to task completion (Zuckerman and Sgourev, 2006). The attention
structures are not “organizational” in nature (e.g., Ocasio, 2011), as they include other producers to whom ego is connected by way of
(mutual) observation (White, 1992).
For Baxandall (1985, 1995) the creative insight emanates from the ways in which the practice of viewing alternates between modes
of attention and inattention (or “reduced” attention). The former is “endogenous” in nature, involving focal vision and directed by
cognitive demands for information about objects in sight. The latter is “exogenous”, involving peripheral vision, operating more
quickly and automatically. These two basic modes are intricately linked, as attention switches from a state of “focus” to that of
“inattention” in response to external occurrences, creating a sense of “restlessness” in the viewer (Baxandall, 1995). For example, in a
2
These perceptual processes take place predominantly among producers, rather than on the audience side, in the form of social evaluations.
Therefore, the proposed framework can be categorized as “supply-side” in nature.
2
S.V. Sgourev Poetics 89 (2021) 101581
work of art there may be visual elements that create uncertainty and provoke interest, thereby “focalizing” attention. Control of the
viewer’s attention is a key aspect of the visual appeal of masterpieces, but is equally important in explaining the patterns of attention
that underlie the circulation of ideas in a given field. In this perspective, the field of art can be understood as a “market in attention,”
defined by an exchange or “a barter of attentions valuable to the other” (Baxandall, 1995: 135).3
To understand shifts in styles or artistic practices requires examining the changing structures of attention, provoked by occurrences
of different nature – technological, conceptual or relational. It is in the process of “attending” to peers, objects or ideas in the course of
movement in social space that novelty is generated. But this movement is not the classic, Humean model of causality where an actor X
influences actor Y, who influences another set of actors on her turn. Baxandall proposes instead a more intricate model of influence,
invoking the “field offered by a billiard table. On this table would be very many balls…and the table is an Italian one without pockets. Above all,
the cue-ball, that which hits another is not X, but Y. What happens in the field, each time Y refers to an X, is a rearrangement. Arts are positional
games and each time an artist is influenced, he rewrites his art’s history a little.” (Baxandall, 1985: 62-64).
Decades after its formulation, this remains a strikingly original statement on the mechanics of social influence, motivating an
alternative perspective on the socio-psychological mechanisms of creativity to established frameworks (e.g., Godart, Seong, & Phillips,
2020). What attributes credibility to it is that it resonates with theoretical developments in sociology over the last decades. This
resonance becomes apparent in the redirection of scholarly attention from direct to indirect social ties, recombination to repositioning,
directionality to reversibility of social influence, and exogeneous to endogenous effects.
Social embeddedness is traditionally articulated in terms of direct social ties that range from strong to weak in nature (Granovetter,
1985). Network scholarship is largely focused on friendship and influence networks (e.g., Burt, 2004; Stovel and Shaw, 2012), applied
to explaining a broad range of behavioral outcomes. In the model of causality proposed by Baxandall, however, the attention is
reoriented from direct to indirect ties, and from mechanics of direct social impact (i.e. one billiard ball (X) hitting another (Y)) to that
of oblique impact by way of “repositioning” (other balls are becoming more or less accessible to Y after impact by X). For Baxandall the
direct social impact of an individual on another individual (i.e. by way of discussion on a topic of common interest) is only one of the
ways in which influence proceeds in art. A potentially more consequential mechanism is that of exposure to the network of references
in which an artist is embedded.
This network includes the set of relevant others that one is paying attention to. The network of references is related to, but is distinct
from the traditional networks of friendship and help/advice. As Zuckerman and Sgourev (2006) demonstrate, actors are able to
differentiate clearly between direct sources of information or advice, and indirect contacts serving as role models or sources of
inspiration. The “indirect” network exhibits distinct effects on key behavioral outcomes from the more traditional networks based on
direct social contact.
Similarly, Ibarra, Kilduff and Tsai (2005) emphasize the fact that social structure is composed not only of direct ties, but also of
cognitive ties that define common perceptions and orientations, and that constitute a basis for the creation of direct ties.4 The
assumption is that people develop an indirect tie between them when they have the same perception of the importance of an idea or
practice (Ibarra et al., 2005, p. 367). A “perceptual” network is composed of indirect, cognitive ties between individuals, based on
similarity of cognitions. Perceptual and behavioral networks overlap only partly and differ in the extent to which they predict out
comes. In this logic, any field of activity can be represented as a marketplace of perceptions that compete for adoption by individuals.
Their adoption then influences patterns of social interaction.
Consider the art world in the early 20th century Paris, comprising tens of thousands of artists, exposed to unprecedented surfeit of
influences, such as Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, African, Japanese and Russian art, and a host of other categories. The
composition of the reference sets of these artists was important, as references provided not only particular techniques that could be
deployed, but also a set of problems to solve. Artists faced a multitude of options from which they could choose their references, and
the choice of references had consequences for the type of problems that they would seek to address and for the ways in which they
would address them (Baxandall, 1985).
Reference sets are not static – they change with the appearance of new styles or the evolution of existing ones. This process is
important because it carries the potential for originality – by adding or removing references, artists modify their research agenda, the
priority given to identified problems and the relations among the references within their set. This dynamic configuration of references
serves as a “prism” through which influence is refracted, structuring perceptions and artistic pursuits. In other words, the reference set
shapes what artists perceive to be both relevant and important, and this is what then shapes their objectives – the problems they are
3
How distinct this framework is from sociological accounts of creativity is attested in a recent review (Godart, Seong, & Phillips, 2020), where the
word “attention” is of theoretical pertinence only in the context of evaluation – as attention allocated by external audiences across competing
configurations of elements. The manner in which Baxandall (1995) poses structures of attention as the key element of an interactive process between
artists is unprecedented.
4
Lizardo (2006) formulated a similar framework, where cultural taste constitutes the basis for the formation and maintenance of social re
lationships. Consumption and tastes create social boundaries and rearrange networks.
3
S.V. Sgourev Poetics 89 (2021) 101581
looking to resolve or the ideas they are trying to formulate. In this logic, the configuration of references – their composition and
positioning relative to each other, conditions perception, predisposing one to seeing some things, but not others, responding to some
developments, but not others, incorporating some ideas, but not others. The “repositioning” of references thus allows or prevents one
from seeing new things or from seeing old things in a new light.
The theoretical importance of the “repositioning” mechanism is twofold. First, it provides an alternative to the mechanism of
“recombination” (or bricolage), whereby actors selectively draw on different sources as cultural toolkits, mixing elements to suit their
strategic designs (e.g. Durand et al., 2007; Navis and Glynn, 2010). Repositioning is a distinct mechanism, as elements are not bor
rowed and mixed, but are repositioned relative to other elements and are then reinterpreted in a way leading to the generation of
novelty. The creative insight derives from perception, from the act of seeing.
Second, repositioning complicates the geometry of perception and influence. When making a reference to another artist, influence
can be direct – by borrowing something from her or addressing problems that this artist considers important. But it can also be indirect,
when using someone’s else solution to think through one’s own set of problems or by re-directing attention to an obscure source of
information that allows for a different perspective on an existing problem. Repositioning modifies the structures of attention – the
exchange of attention between artists (Baxandall, 1995), predisposing to seeing some things more distinctly than others.
The analytical focus is not on practices of recombination by people, but on the exchanges of attention between people. These ex
changes may take the form of exposing others to a set of ideas or elements, modifying their cognitive availability or “retrievability”
(Schudson, 1989), but also nudging others to reconsider a problem in new light. Creative insight tends to emerge in the course of
complex positional games on the billiard table, in a way that combines the path dependence of the movement of balls on the table with
the elements of chance related to unscripted changes in the observation angles, originating from chance encounters or clashes.
What adds complexity is the reversibility of social influence. In network studies influence is typically one-directional. Whether in
help/advice networks or the diffusion of innovation, a network member affects a peer by transmitting information, by exercising
influence or encouraging adoption. Accordingly, the most central members of the network – i.e. brokers, are the most important
sources of influence (Burt, 2004), best positioned to combine resources and ideas from many contacts (Collins, 1998). But for Baxandall
influence is never one-directional; when one artist influences another, the former’s position also changes as a result of the impact,
pushing her closer to some of the balls on the table and further away from others. The effect of “reversibility” – a person modifying the
positioning of a contact upon referring to her as a source of inspiration and influence, reminds of the principle of reversibility in studies
of materiality.5
Research on materiality tends to explore the interplay among objects, ideas and people (Jones et al., 2017, Boxenbaum et al., 2018).
It documents how materials allow or limit possibilities for action, encompassing the range of activities that an object makes available to
a user, who enacts a specific set of these possibilities (Faraj and Azad, 2012). Objects facilitate the use of particular features, but users
define the functionality of the object through the practice of its use (Yaneva, 2009). Network research highlights a different form of
interplay – between individual identity and networks. Identities control networks, but networks constitute the relational bases for the
modification of identities (White, 1992). Ibarra et al. (2005, pp. 362-363) state this interplay unambiguously – networks affect
identities; identities affect networks on their turn. Along similar lines, Baxandall postulates a dual process, whereby artists choose their
references, but the references attract (or repel) choosers on their turn. When artists make a reference to a peer in their artworks, they
affect the reference sets of others, as their choices codify the affirmation of an identity that can be viewed as attractive or undesirable
by others. This model is dynamic and interactive in nature, marked by the coevolution of the field and of the actors participating in it
(Garud and Karnøe, 2001). The “repositioning” provoked by one ball hitting another on the table has repercussions beyond the focal
pair. The mechanics of a field where every actor, irrespective of her position, can exert influence on the configuration of the balls on the
table through her choices, are substantively different from the traditional core-periphery structure of fields (e.g. Bourdieu, 1993). The
core is the domain of “stars”, connected to other eminent members of the field. Those at the center of the field have better knowledge
and access to opportunities than those at the periphery, influencing the choices at the periphery (Collins, 1998). But status distinctions
are less pertinent when influence tends to flow both ways: peripheral actors have a more active role to play.
The self-generative nature of references in this framework associates it with the tendency in the sociology of culture toward greater
attention to the endogenous nature of change. The analytical focus in this perspective is on causal processes within culture, inde
pendent of exogeneous (relational, technological or material) factors. Studies document how internal mechanisms drive social pro
cesses (Kaufman, 2004), attributing a key role to naturally evolving dichotomies that serve to differentiate between “us” and “them”
(Lieberson, 2000; Abbott, 2001). Hence, the driving force of creativity is not the traditional “exogeneous” combinatory practice,
through which actors create novelty in conjunction with other actors (e.g. Durand et al., 2007; Navis and Glynn, 2010), but an “in
ternal” process guided by simple behavioral rules of differentiation and contrast (Lieberson, 2000, Abbott, 2001). Attention is
5
It also reminds of probably the most famous statement on reversibility in sociological scholarship – Giddens’ (1986) “structuration”. Social
structures shape people’s practices, but at the same time, practices constitute (and reproduce) social structures. Note also the reversible influence
between culture and networks in Lizardo (2006).
4
S.V. Sgourev Poetics 89 (2021) 101581
redirected to the ways in which fields create the preconditions for schism – for actors to differentiate themselves from the mainstream
by referencing and identifying with contesting paradigms (Abbott, 2001). This framework is consistent with White’s (1992) model of
producers observing and reacting to each other by adjusting their output or differentiating products. From such efforts emerge
identities that structure the organization of fields into peer networks by shaping individual choices of materials, techniques and
narratives. Accordingly, we can expect that artists self-select into networks, based on their affinity with materials, techniques or
concepts, and that their choices reflect upon the choices of their peers by re-arranging the balls on the table, creating clusters of balls at
higher or lower level of opposition and contrast (Baxandall, 1985).
Relative to established sociological frameworks (see Godart, Seong, & Phillips, 2020), the presented model offers a new perspective
on creativity, emanating from the disruption and redirection of patterns of attention. This model derives from Baxandall’s (1985,
1995) work on perception, which remains largely ignored by sociologists, in contrast to his earlier work, more directly pertinent to the
sociology of art. Tanner (2010) documents the sociological relevance of Baxandall, showing how his work has been used to reinforce
“institutionalist” frameworks. For example, the concept of the “period eye”, capturing the salience of the knowledge of artistic codes in
perception and evaluation, resonates with Bourdieu’s (1984) conceptualization of the role of cultural capital in social inequality. The
“field” concept and the analysis of arts as “positional games” constitute other areas of affinity between the two frameworks.
For Baxandall (1972, 1980) artistic choices operate within institutions and conventions, which affect the nature and quality of
artistic work. Unsurprisingly, Becker (1982) draws on his scholarship in developing the argument that art is not the unique product of
individual “genius”, but the mundane product of networks of cooperation (Tanner, 2010). For both authors, an artwork is made
possible by a chain of cooperation involving other artists and genre conventions, mediating interactions between members of the art
world. The professional organization of art is manifested in networks of production that organize the creative process, procure ma
terials, stabilize techniques, organize careers and shape the distribution of value (Becker, 1982).
Baxandall’s approach is institutionalist in nature, as he analyzes art production in its relation to a marketplace of taste and values.
This marketplace defines the circumstances that influence artistic choices – their techniques, the narratives they use or influences they
absorb. Similar to Becker (1982) and Bourdieu (1993), the market creates conditions for competitive self-differentiation among artists
in positional games. But there is a key difference between their approaches; what he conceptualizes is not how the system conditions
individual choices, but how artists react to and seek to out-do each other in the marketplace. He operates within an art-historical
tradition, which prioritizes agency, the autonomy of the artwork and artistic exchanges.
Baxandall recognizes that artistic creativity is embedded in network dynamics of cultural and material elements (Godart, Seong, &
Phillips, 2020), but for him the artist and the work of art remain central, rather than the social context (Zolberg, 1990: 55). He em
phasizes the material agency of art in constituting the social order, rather than just reproducing it. In his insistence on the active
character of the artwork he diverges from both institutional theories (Bourdieu, 1993; Becker, 1982), and Actor-Network theory
(Latour, 1995)6, becoming a “guiding spirit” in the constitution of the “New” Sociology of Art (Tanner, 2010). This research stream
disputes the assumption that art worlds, rather than artists, make works of art (Becker, 1982), emphasizing the unique, non-routine
nature of artistic work, and the autonomous aesthetic and social impact of the artwork (e.g. De la Fuente, 2011, Dominguez Rubio &
Silva, 2013).
Central to this framework is the interaction between a social agent and a cultural object. As Griswold (1987: 24-25) points out, the
pivot of Baxandall’s framework is the social agent, for whom a probable structure of intention can be constructed. The agent is a
problem-solver, confronted with a practical, geometrical or logical problem, for which there is no reactive way of doing it (Baxandall,
1985: 69).7 The impetus for the resolution of the problem is often external in nature, but in contrast to sociological accounts, agency
rests with the receiving actor. Similar to Giddens (1986) or Sewell (1992), Baxandall (1985) conceives of individuals as "knowl
edgeable" or "enabled" agents, capable of putting their structurally formed capacities to work in creative ways. But for him creativity is
not reducible to the knowledge of a rule or a schema, or to the practice of transposition and extension of schemas to new contexts
(Sewell 1982: 18). The knowledge of cultural schemas does not provide a sufficient explanation of the ability to act creatively, as
demonstrated in his analyses of the aesthetic function of the practical experience of craftsmen at handling material objects (Baxandall,
1980, 1988).8
Furthermore, he redirects the currents of influence in creative activity, as the agent chooses to be influenced in seeking solutions to a
6
Baxandall’s approach shares with Actor-Network theory and the sociology of translation (e.g. Latour, 1995) the assumption that creativity
derives from the interplay of people, objects and technologies, but not their tendency to “decenter the study of creativity from humans” (Bartels &
Bencherki, 2013: 5). Creativity in these perspectives does not result from “actants” – people and objects, - interacting with one another, but has a
hybrid constitution (Godart, Seong, & Phillips, 2020: 493).
7
This behavioral model bears resemblance to the “sensemaking” paradigm of Weick (1995) in its emphasis on problem-solving and control of
attention, but is fundamentally different in the underlying motivation of pursuit of distinctiveness, rather than construction of meaning and
reduction of uncertainty.
8
If Baxandall’s agent is exposed to alternative narratives or frameworks for innovation, the critical process for Baxandall is not how these
narratives coordinate action (e.g. Bartel and Garud 2009), but how the agent chooses among the multitude of narratives and frameworks in the
marketplace and what he or she identifies as worthy of attention. This is where the perceptual dimension of cognition and the “billiard table” model
become relevant.
5
S.V. Sgourev Poetics 89 (2021) 101581
problem by associating with a network of ideas, methods or peers. It is the artist who chooses to take something from another artist and
who is thus the active partner in the relationship (Onians, 2007). Influence is the choice of references from within a network of other
artists; one’s choices modify one’s position in the network by drawing closer or moving away from a given reference. An artist does not
look for inspiration from her paint supplier; it is not the extended chain of cooperation (Becker, 1982) that instigates creative insights,
but the network of other producers (White, 1992), and this is the network that Baxandall overlays on the billiard table. The choice of
“billiards” to describe the positional game between artists contrasts with Becker’s (1982) approach, which resembles a chess game
(Pessin, 2017: 49-50). It involves a social situation in which actors with divergent interests do something together, with a similar
respect for rules and conventions, with each player analyzing the situation and gauging the opponent’s foreseeable responses to her
own moves, adjusting her actions to include new information provided by other’s reactions.
Baxandall’s game similarly encompasses a sequence of shifting positions, but the manner in which the balls enter into contact with
each other is different from the chessboard, as control is only partial. When a ball strikes another, it provokes a change in the
configuration of balls on the table that modifies not only distances between balls, but the angles of their visibility. This “optical”
dimension is a distinctive feature of the Baxandall model and is what sets it apart from more familiar theoretical frameworks.
The metaphor of the “billiard” table is invoked by some authors, such as Griswold (1987: 14), in describing how the comprehension
of a past artist is affected by the reception of her inheritors. The social construction of the role of a precursor in the exchange between
the past and present is a genuine, but limited, application of a model that provides an alternative conception of influence and crea
tivity. The reluctance of sociologists to engage more systematically perception and attention in their theories has resulted in a
disequilibrium in the sociology of art: we understand much better why artists repeat conventions in their work (Becker, 1982;
Bourdieu, 1993), than what provokes them to stop doing so and redirect their attention to new sources or possibilities. The behavioral
model of Baxandall (1985) is a good starting point in this endeavor, encouraging the conceptualization of the social mechanisms that
regulate the interplay of attention and inattention. The objective is to explain the genesis of those moments of “restlessness” (Bax
andall, 1995) that disrupt cognitive routines and visual habits, thereby opening the way for creation.
In the next section I illustrate the change in analytical perspective with a brief discussion of three emblematic figures in the history
of art, brought together on the billiard table in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The discussion of the resonance of the collision of
two balls (Cézanne – Picasso) or how the collision of central balls changed the position of a peripheral ball (El Greco), is not meant to be
historically exhaustive or to “validate” the theoretical framework. Its objective is to illustrate the relevance and plausibility of the
developed framework, to demonstrate the workings of a mechanism and to suggest ways to further develop the model and subject it to
rigorous testing (Siggelkow, 2007).
3.1. El Greco
Born in Crete, Domenikos Theotokopoulos (El Greco) (1541-1614) painted religious icons, before he departed for Venice and then
Rome, finally settling down in Toledo, Spain. His rendering of religious themes was stylistically unconventional. Drawing on
Byzantine, Venetian and Mannerist sources, he developed a highly expressive, idiosyncratic style with no identifiable predecessors
from the Italian masters, nor followers for the next three centuries (Wethey, 1962). Unlike his contemporaries, El Greco did not
represent reality in a balanced composition, conveyed through clear narrative and harmonious colors. His paintings featured elongated
faces and deformed figures, accentuated by bright, contrasting colors. The absence of balanced proportions and harmonious coloring
puzzled his contemporaries (Baetjer, 1981). In 1724 his style was condemned as contemptible and laughable by the art historian
Antonio Palomino.9 El Greco was largely ignored and viewed with incomprehension until the late 19th century; the dramatic change of
his fortunes occurred only in the early 20th century.10
Imagine a bright red ball in the corner of a billiard table, collecting dust for centuries, before changes in the principles of evaluation
impelled a number of other balls to start moving toward the red ball. This ball does not move by itself to the center, but other balls
move to it instead, making it appear more central. El Greco’s rejection of naturalistic representation in favor of elongated figures,
bright colors and expressiveness resonated with avant-garde artists in Paris and Berlin, looking for ways to overcome the constraints of
realistic representation. Delacroix, Millet and Degas owned examples of his work, Cézanne and Sargent copied him, while Picasso
borrowed from him on multiple occasions.
The key figure in the repositioning of El Greco was Julius Meier-Graefe, a scholar of French Impressionism, whose book published
in 1910 established El Greco not only as an Old Master, but as a contemporary artist. Meier-Graefe (1962[1910]) observes that many of
the principal inventions of Modem art, such as colored shadows, the dissolution of contours, and the combination of cadences and
contrasts are already presupposed in El Greco. "He has discovered a realm of new possibilities. All the generations that follow after him live in
his realm. There is a greater difference between him and Titian, his master, than between him and Renoir or Cézanne. Nevertheless, Renoir and
Cézanne are masters of impeccable originality because it is not possible to avail yourself of El Greco’s language, if in using it, it is not invented
again and again, by the user” (p. 458).
This statement employs the language of repositioning, referring to distances between balls on the table – between El Greco, his
predecessor and contemporary artists, to establish his proximity to the latter, rather than the former. The originality and identity of El
9
Palomino’s El Parnaso español pintoresco laureado (1724) contains important biographical material relating to the prominent Spanish artists at
the time.
10
The frequency of appearance of his name in French books (available in Google Ngram), testifies to the lack of interest before 1892, followed by a
gradual rise in the reference rate, and steeper increase in the first decades of the 20th century.
6
S.V. Sgourev Poetics 89 (2021) 101581
Greco’s art become apparent when changing the point of observation from the oeuvre of Titian to that of Renoir and Cézanne. Meaning
is relative and “optical” in nature; contemporary artists contribute to the repositioning of the Old Master by borrowing from him. This
is not the process of borrowing from the past to apply it in the present, but reinterpreting something taken from the past in light of what
is happening at present. Meier-Graefe (1962[1910]) asserts the reversibility of influence, as Renoir and Cézanne made the compre
hension of El Greco easier, but El Greco made modern artists more understandable to contemporary audiences by helping place radical
aesthetic developments in historical context.
This complex perceptual process led to the rearrangement of the “structures of attention”. As the field is changing in a way that casts
light on an obscure artist, this also contributes to making other artists more or less visible, redirecting attention to some artistic
tendencies and away from others. A previously peripheral ball becomes a reference point for others and with every additional
reference, its visibility is enhanced. El Greco becomes more comprehensible in the context of contemporary art, and his solutions serve
to guide the search process of contemporary artists. These artists are increasingly recognizing the credibility of his vision, and as a
result of adopting his viewpoint, they are better able to identify opportunities for developing their own style.
This form of optical interplay, whereby El Greco’s art reoriented the attention structures and search process of contemporary
artists11, whose perceptions then enhanced his visibility, transpires as well in the words of Franz Marc, a key figure in German
Expressionism, “we refer with pleasure and steadfastness to the case of El Greco, because the glory of this painter is closely tied to the evolution
of our new perceptions on art” (Kandinsky-Marc, 1987, pp. 75-76). The attention of Expressionist artists was naturally attracted to the
expressive distortions in El Greco’s style, but other artists were attracted to other aspects. Paul Cézanne appears to have been the first
to decipher the structural code in the morphology of El Greco, using it to further his formalist pursuits (Denis, 1920). In his Blue Period
Picasso drew on the cold tonality of El Greco in developing images of ascetic figures with elongated faces, but his early Cubism
embodied his attention to other aspects of El Greco, such as the structural analysis of compositions and the interweaving of form and
space (Johnson, 1980). Picasso considered El Greco’s formal structure as Cubist, and it is likely that the distortions and materialistic
rendering of time in his early Cubism derived from observations of El Greco (de la Souchère, 1960: 15). Dynamic shifts in perspective in
the early 20th century enabled artists to see like El Greco, recognizing what he represented on the canvass as meaningful. But as a result
of adopting his viewpoint, artists were able to see differently, reimagining past developments in contemporary light.
3.2. Cézanne
Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) is a pivotal figure in the history of modern art. His main contributions relate to the exploration of the
formal structure of reality, as represented on the canvass. While his Impressionist contemporaries were primarily concerned with
capturing the ephemeral effects of nature, Cézanne was preoccupied with the questions of permanence and stability, of constituting a
structural framework for painting through the arrangement of lines and forms (Robbins, 1963). The structure of a painting makes it a
tangible reality in itself, independent from the represented objects.
The wide-ranging influence of Cézanne on early Modern art has relatively little to do with relational factors, as the artist retreated
from the Parisian art world in Southern France. His exhibition at the 1907 Salon d’Automne was paramount in enhancing his visibility,
attracting the attention of young artists in Paris (Moser, 1985). Cézanne’s explorations of geometric simplification and optical phe
nomena inspired Picasso, Braque, Metzinger, Gleizes, Delaunay, Gris and others to experiment with complex multiple views of the
same subject, and, eventually, with the fracturing of form (Moser, 1985). Braque recognized the fundamental role of Cézanne’s optical
advances in inspiring him to move away from Fauvism and search in another direction: “It [Cézanne’s impact] was more than an in
fluence, it was an invitation. Cézanne was the first to have broken away from erudite, mechanized perspective” (in Rubin (1989, p. 353). The
pursuit of pictorial elements that are solid and durable in their representation repositioned the balls on the billiard table, inciting
emerging artists to reevaluate their own work in relation to that of Cézanne (Donnell-Kotrozo, 1979).
Cézanne’s insistence on reconstructing nature according to a system of basic forms resonated with Picasso’s pursuits at that time. In
Cézanne’s work Picasso found a model of how to distill the essential from nature in order to achieve a cohesive surface that expressed
the artist’s singular vision (Donnell-Kotrozo, 1979). Picasso identified in Cézanne a working method and a framework within which to
address the key problems confronting art in the early 20th century.12 He was not a passive receptacle of that influence, but had “a
discriminating view of the past in an active and reciprocal relation with a developing set of dispositions and skills” (Baxandall, 1985: 62). He
correctly identified the most valuable aspects of Cézanne’s style – viewing subjects from shifting positions and reducing representation
to geometric forms. By incorporating these principles, Picasso translated Cézanne for a broader audience, making his art more
accessible (Baxandall, 1985). Cézanne’s formal experiments were materialized and illustrated in the early Cubism of Braque and
Picasso. By referencing earlier work, an artist changes somewhat the perspective on the original, placing it in different light. Cubism
reflected and refracted prior developments, allowing viewers to adopt and adapt Cézanne’s viewpoint, in a similar manner to how El
Greco’s particular vision was adopted and adapted by Expressionism.
A distinctive feature of Cézanne is the richness of his references. He studied assiduously masterpieces of Poussin, Chardin, Ver
onese, Rubens and Delacroix, among others. His reading of art of the past was instrumental in developing a method for reconstructing
11
The exhibition “El Greco and Modern Painting” at the “Prado” in 2015 made this point empathically, highlighting the ways in which El Greco
influenced the pursuits of Pollock, Cézanne, Picasso, Manet and others.
12
These problems can be summarized as (1) how to represent threedimensional objects on a two-dimensional canvas without creating a mere
illusion of depth, (2) how to resolve the tension between form and color, and (3) how to resolve the conflict between instantaneousness and
sustained engagement (Baxandall 1985, pp. 44-45).
7
S.V. Sgourev Poetics 89 (2021) 101581
the object. Even as a mature artist, Cézanne continued to rethink his decisions in light of passages of paintings by masters such as
Chardin. The delicate optical instabilities in Chardin’s painting were writ large in Cézanne, giving rise to spatial ambiguities and
disjointedness in the composition that laid the foundations for the radical experiments in the next decades (Locke, 2015). Visual in
stabilities in Chardin were refracted through and magnified by Cézanne, provoking formal Cubist experiments that introduced dis
tortions, multiple viewpoints, and ambiguous spatial relations into visual representation (Antliff and Leighten, 2001).
The impetus to break up, analyze and reassemble objects into abstract forms originated in the working method of Cézanne and the
sources on which it was based. Cubism then amplified the spatial disjunctions present in Cézanne in a manner corresponding only
loosely to his intentions (Robbins, 1963). The same way that viewers could better understand the formal experiments of Cézanne
through the prism of early Cubism, they could better recognize the delicate unevenness of Chardin as a result of viewing Cézanne
(Locke, 2015). Such shifts in perspective associated with the repositioning of balls on the table are essential in the creative process.
What emerges in the end is intrinsically related to, but not determined by what came earlier; a sequence of re-viewing and
re-evaluating prior developments creates preconditions for novelty.
Creativity research is traditionally dominated by psychological work on personality traits (Sternberg, 2006; George, 2007), with a
more recent sociological current exploring the social-structural factors of novelty generation (Burt, 2004; Collins, 2008; Cattani and
Ferriani, 2008). There is strong evidence for the salience of combinatorial practices in creativity and innovation, as embedded in
configurations of social relations (Godart, Seong, & Phillips, 2020; Simonton, 2004). Yet, there is also much to suggest that attention to
relations and recombination should be complemented with perceptual factors. As worded by Steve Jobs: “Creativity is just connecting
things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something.”13
Along similar lines, Le Corbusier (1960: 27) noted that: “Drawing is first and foremost observing. At that moment, invention ensues”.
Perception looms large in the creative process. Kuhn (1962) conceived of “paradigm shifts” in science as largely perceptual in
nature, conditioned by beliefs and personal experiences. For Simon (1985) practices and events that disrupt and refocus attention
facilitate the creative break from routine. The observation that creative insight derives from a change of vantage point (Berns, 2008), as
an actor moves through social space, allowing her or him to see common elements in uncommon ways, defines the proposed “optical”
approach. Its objective is to contribute to the sociological study of creativity by integrating perceptual dynamics and the role of
“attention” as a regulator of perception (Berns, 2008).
To that end, I drew on the multifaceted scholarship of Baxandall (1985, 1995), who proposes that the classic causal chain does not
do justice to the complexities of social influence and creativity. Actors are involved not only in practices of recombination, mixing old
elements in new combinations (e.g. Rao et al., 2005) but also those of repositioning, which modify their viewpoint and the relevance of
what is observed at any point in time. Creativity results when actors use someone else’s solution to think through their own problems,
provoking reinterpretation of established ways of doing. Cézanne repositioned the balls on the table through his “formal” methods.
Picasso reinterpreted him, affecting the pursuits of others, but not in the same way, as his explorations were refracted through personal
or collective identities, giving rise to distinct styles (e.g., Sgourev, 2013). Creative insight is “optical” in nature when it derives from a
change in perspective. This change can be due to the “repositioning” of balls on the table, modifying the angles of visibility and
distance between balls. It can also be brought about by the refraction of viewing by personal experiences (Berns, 2008; Onians, 2007),
or a Gestalt-switch that occurs when one identifies a visual image as one thing and, then, as another (Kuhn, 1962). Communication is
inherently ambiguous; images and symbols are “polysemic” and can be variously interpreted (Schudson, 1989: 155), creating pos
sibilities for the generation of new meaning.
As Kronfeldner (2009) notes, the study of creativity is plagued by a paradox – either creativity is naturalistically unexplainable (if it
brings about genuine novelty) or what is actually explained is not genuine creativity (if it does not bring about genuine novelty).
Originality demands independence of a product of mind from the causal influence of an original. In the “repositioning” framework
control is only partial, as sequences of ball movement may lead to sudden changes in the angles of visibility that are not reducible to
initial conditions. The metaphor of the billiard table captures elegantly the mix of determinism and chance that makes creativity
amenable to analysis, but tantalizingly unpredictable.
Baxandall’s work has been leveraged by sociologists to reinforce institutionalist approaches to art (Tanner, 2010). I drew instead on
underexplored themes from his late scholarship to articulate optical dimensions of creativity. Compared against the premises of the
sociological study of creativity (e.g. Godart, Seong, & Phillips, 2020), this approach appears unusual in prioritizing perceptual to
relational factors. But this is an opportunity more than a hindrance. Network scholarship is increasingly recognizing the need to
connect relational and cognitive processes in explaining social outcomes. Ibarra et al. (2005) formulate a recommendation for scholars
that echoes Baxandall – to analyze closely the marketplace of perceptions in which different cognitive schemas compete for attention
and adoption, alerting actors to different options. An important theoretical challenge is to position mechanisms of novelty generation
in cognitive-relational space, examining how social networks act as regulators of (in)attention, or how structures of attention influence
relational dynamics.
The proposed framework, based on reference networks, depicts one trajectory of the complex interplay between cognitive and
relational processes but other approaches may explore other networks or outcomes. Consider Prato and Stark’s (2013) analysis of
13
From an interview in Wired magazine (1996), available at: http://www.wired.com/1996/02/jobs-2/
8
S.V. Sgourev Poetics 89 (2021) 101581
“network attention structures”. Attention has connective properties, creating links across issues in an organization’s field of view, and
among competitors who pay attention to the same issues. The authors share the assumptions with the present framework that behavior
is shaped by one’s viewpoint, location in attention networks and exposure to the views of others. Another similarity is the attention to
indirect social ties and mechanisms of social influence (i.e. structural equivalence, Lorrain and White (1971)), which allow to escape
the analytical constraints of direct influence. Naturally, integrating oblique social impact through indirect exposure approximates
closer reality, but presents acute challenges related to measurement and data collection.
The development of appropriate empirical methods for studying attention structures will allow an improved understanding of the
dynamic interaction between individual and social-structural factors in creativity (Csikszentmihályi, 1996). Both theoretical and
empirical research is needed on connecting trajectories of direct and indirect social influence to attention structures. For example,
Sgourev (2021) shows how a technological development in the mid-19th century encouraged a small group of artists to develop and
materialize new ways of seeing on the canvass. Artists with a common attention structure, paying attention to the same peers,
techniques and set of ideas, self-selected into loose networks that coordinated contesting actions. The interaction of social networks
and attention structures contributed to changing the perspective on what was possible in artistic representation.
One of the most valuable features of the Baxandall model is that it reinstates agency to actors, confronted with social conventions
and chains of cooperation (Becker, 1982). The artist navigates the complex environment of creation, funding and marketplace
competition. Social, economic and cultural contexts define the circumstances of individual choices and interpretations, but the actor is
entitled to her individuality by selecting her formative sources of influence. Creative breakthroughs emerge from a discriminating view
of the past and present, identifying some of the potential sources of influence as worthwhile of attention. This approach is resolutely
sociological in postulating that choices are guided by identities – by the sense of self in relation to the market. It is in the act of choosing
– whom to pay attention to, where to exhibit or what techniques to employ, that repetitive practices are interrupted and possibilities
for invention appear. Similar to White (1992), a market in attention structures individual activity by way of mutual observation and
relative positioning.
Baxandall’s framework anticipated developments in sociological scholarship, including the growing attention to the social bases of
perception, to indirect social influence, reverse causality and endogeneity in culture. Developments in network research and cultural
sociology have rendered his metaphor of the “billiard table” more apposite, demonstrating how later developments may reinforce the
validity of past arguments. This validity is not restricted to the artistic domain, as the postulated mechanisms are general in nature.
However, the framework emerged from the artistic domain and incorporates assumptions about the salience of creativity, the nature of
interaction between producers and the importance of the reference set, which do not apply equally across social contexts.
The postulated mechanisms need to be tested in a systematic manner. An important empirical challenge in operationalizing
structures of attention is capturing who pays attention to whom or what. One possibility is using primary data to identify networks of
references and sequences of referencing. Alternatively, artificial intelligence and large digital databases can be leveraged to extract
information on peer references or shared exposure, such as participations in relational events (i.e., art exhibitions). Content analysis
and topic modelling can be applied in the analysis of personal communication, as a source of information on attention. Experimental
studies and research in neuroscience can be helpful in connecting brain activity to patterns of visualization and distribution of
attention (e.g. Onians, 2007).
The presented framework is intentionally parsimonious, featuring basic principles that future research can modify or extend. It does
not account for degrees of creativity, even if it is clear that not every change of perspective leads to novelty. Repositioning is not limited
to a single table; in reality, multiple tables are connected in ways that condition the movement of the balls. For example, the emergence
of abstract art was shaped by developments in philosophy, music, physical sciences and optics (Roque, 2003). On its turn, art
contributed to shifting perspectives in fields, such as fashion, decoration or ballet. A related way to extend the framework is to allow for
people to connect tables. I retained Baxandall’s (1985) original conception of balls corresponding to artists. But one can also position a
player with a cue stick at the head of the table, with balls corresponding to ideas. Not only people, but also ideas compete for attention
(Ibarra et al. 2005). Adopting the idea as a unit of analysis would require further theoretical work, refining the repositioning
mechanism and connecting to other research streams, such as that on networks of ideas or concepts (e.g. Godart, 2018).
Sociology has a distinctive contribution to make to the study of creativity (Godart, Seong, & Phillips, 2020), but distinctiveness does
not mean detachment from other research traditions. We need to explore how creativity is embedded in cognitive-relational space,
how attention structures emerge and interact with relations. The objective is to explain the state of “restlessness”, of disruption of
cognitive patterns that predisposes to the emergence of novelty. As recommended by Harrison White: “How do you know where you get
an idea from? A hint, a perspective, a point of view, that’s what you’re after”.14
Supplementary materials
Supplementary material associated with this article can be found, in the online version, at doi:10.1016/j.poetic.2021.101581.
14
From an interview with White available at: https://www.ssc.wisc.edu/theoryatmadison/papers/ivwWhite.pdf
9
S.V. Sgourev Poetics 89 (2021) 101581
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Stoyan V. Sgourev is a professor of management at ESSEC Business School, France. He received his PhD in sociology from Stanford University and was a postdoctoral
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11
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»Pro quo, si menti tanta est fiducia, poscat
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Exitus exuperat, quidquid sperare licebat.
Re sibi seposita nulla, puppesque, virosque,
Præfectumque Maris captos, concorde Donaldus
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Adversa CHRISTO Turba acclamante, videre
Quina Salutiferi splendentia Vulnera CHRISTI,
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Curarum hoc pretium, merces ea digna laborum:
Nam REGIque, DEOque simul qui serviit, ipsi
Nil majus Fortuna dabit, neque Gloria majus.
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Solaque Pœna venit pede claudo. Lysia, surge;
Tolle superba caput: quid non sperare licebit
Talibus Auspiciis? Tibi plaude, ó Lysia, plaude.
Jam Tibi fatidicæ nent aurea fila Sorores;
Sæclorumque nitens ordo, Regnante JOANNE,
Nascitur: incæptis gaude: majora sequentur.
Fervida funde preces, pia NUMINA sæpe fatiga,
Ut Solio Celsa cum CONJUGE fultus Avito,
Tempora JOANNES innubila transigat ævi;
TERROR ut Externis, sit maxima CURA Suorum;
Natorum ut cernens Natos, Natosque Nepotum,
Serior, unde fuit MUNUS, rapiatur in astra:
Te dignus PRINCEPS; Tu PRINCIPE digna vicissim.
FINIS.
Nota
No original, as páginas alternavam entre latim e português. Nessa versão, foram
juntadas por lingua para facilitar a leitura.
In the original, the pages alternated between Latin and Portuguese. In this version, to
make it easier on the reader, the Portuguese poem has been joined together, followed by
the Latin version.
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