Changing perspective: An “optical” approach to creativity
Stoyan V. Sgourev
ESSEC Business School - Paris, 3 Avenue Bernard Hirsch, CS 50105, Cergy Pontoise Cedex 95021, France
ABSTRACT
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 C´ ezanne. The framework builds on the growing sociological interest in social optics, indirect influence, reverse causality and endogeneity. It provides opportunities 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 discrepancies 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
E-mail address: sgourev@essec.edu
1 From his writings: “The eye, which is said to be the window of the soul, is the primary means by which the sensus communis of the brain may most fully contemplate the magnificent works of nature” (Kemp 2004, p.51).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.poetic.2021.101581
Received 24 April 2020; Received in revised form 27 May 2021; Accepted 2 June 2021
Availableonline17June2021
0304-422X/©2021ElsevierB.V.Allrightsreserved.
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.
2. Influence and Attention
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.
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.
2.1. Direct and Indirect Ties
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 outcomes. 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).
2.2. Recombination and repositioning
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 relationships. Consumption and tastes create social boundaries and rearrange networks.
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 borrowed 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 exchanges 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.
2.3. Directionality and reversibility of social influence
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.
2.4.
Exogenous and endogenous effects
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, independent of exogeneous (relational, technological or material) factors. Studies document how internal mechanisms drive social processes (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 “internal” 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)
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).
3. Positioning the model
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 materials, 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 emphasizes 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 "knowledgeable" 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.
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 creativity. 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” (Baxandall, 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 (C´ ezanne – 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, C´ ezanne 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 C´ ezanne. Nevertheless, Renoir and C´ ezanne 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 espanol 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.
Greco’s art become apparent when changing the point of observation from the oeuvre of Titian to that of Renoir and C´ ezanne. 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 C´ ezanne made the comprehension 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 C´ ezanne 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 Souch` ere, 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. C´ ezanne
Paul C´ ezanne (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, C´ ezanne 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 C´ ezanne 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). C´ ezanne’s explorations of geometric simplification and optical phenomena 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 C´ ezanne’s optical advances in inspiring him to move away from Fauvism and search in another direction: “It [C´ ezanne’s impact] was more than an influence, it was an invitation. C´ ezanne 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 C´ ezanne (Donnell-Kotrozo, 1979).
C´ ezanne’s insistence on reconstructing nature according to a system of basic forms resonated with Picasso’s pursuits at that time. In C´ ezanne’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 C´ ezanne 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 C´ ezanne’s style – viewing subjects from shifting positions and reducing representation to geometric forms. By incorporating these principles, Picasso translated C´ ezanne for a broader audience, making his art more accessible (Baxandall, 1985). C´ ezanne’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 C´ ezanne’s viewpoint, in a similar manner to how El Greco’s particular vision was adopted and adapted by Expressionism.
A distinctive feature of C´ ezanne is the richness of his references. He studied assiduously masterpieces of Poussin, Chardin, Veronese, 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, C´ ezanne, 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).
the object. Even as a mature artist, C´ ezanne 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 C´ ezanne, 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 instabilities in Chardin were refracted through and magnified by C´ ezanne, provoking formal Cubist experiments that introduced distortions, 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 C´ ezanne and the sources on which it was based. Cubism then amplified the spatial disjunctions present in C´ ezanne in a manner corresponding only loosely to his intentions (Robbins, 1963). The same way that viewers could better understand the formal experiments of C´ ezanne through the prism of early Cubism, they could better recognize the delicate unevenness of Chardin as a result of viewing C´ ezanne (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.
4. Implications for theory and methodology
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. C´ ezanne 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 possibilities 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/
“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 (Csikszentmih´ alyi, 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
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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 fellow at MIT Sloan. His research interests include innovation and evaluation practices in the creative industries and network dynamics in historical perspective. His research has been featured in the American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, Organization Science and Academy of Management Journal, among others.
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opportunity of judging whether Mr M’Culloch’s opinions are not as well founded as they are harmonious with those of the Conservative party.
Mr M’Culloch maintains that it is more than doubtful whether any remission of taxation should take place unless the revenue exceed the ordinary expenditure by some 5 or 10 per cent of its amount. In other words, he considers that, with an expenditure equal to that of the United Kingdom, the estimates should always be so framed as to have a conjectural balance of four or five millions. Mr Gladstone rarely aims at having a surplus of even a tenth of that amount; and sometimes £80,000 or less seems to him enough to meet the chapter of accidents, and sustain the moral power and financial credit of the country! The following passage, which appears in the new edition of Mr M’Culloch’s work, seems to have been written expressly in reference to the financial administration of the present Chancellor of the Exchequer:—
“In countries under free or constitutional governments the reduction or repeal of taxes is frequently proposed in the view of courting popularity, or of favourably influencing public opinion. And the desire to grasp an immediate advantage, to be relieved of a burden, without caring for the ultimate consequences of its extinction, is so extremely prevalent, that such projects, though often very undeserving, seldom fail to procure a less or greater share of the public sympathy for those by whom they are put forth. Statesmen, however, and those intrusted with the duties of government, should take a less circumscribed view of such matters, and are bound to inquire into the real character of the measures that come before them, and to weigh and consider their more remote as well as their proximate results. Their duty is to oppose, not to pander to the selfish and unfounded prejudices of the public.... The real questions are, can the tax be spared; and, if not, can it be replaced by a less inconvenient or injurious tax? If it can neither be spared nor replaced by another that is less objectionable, its repeal would be as futile, as inexpedient, and as unadvised a measure as can well be imagined.”
Mr Gladstone, in his desire for popularity, has carried the practice thus emphatically condemned by Mr M’Culloch to a most dangerous extreme. He totally disregards the sound principle of ending every year with a surplus, in order to meet sudden and unforeseen contingencies, and he lavishes every spare pound upon the reduction of taxation. Moreover, in making these reductions, he has adopted a
practice which, although he presents it under the attractive guise of a “simplification of the tariff,” is paving the way for a serious popular agitation against some of the indispensable elements of our fiscal system. Sir Robert Peel, it is true, simplified the tariff; but he did so more wisely and prudently. It was not merely for the sake of simplicity that he reduced the list of taxed commodities, but because many of the taxes at that time vexed trade without appreciably swelling the revenue. Previous to his administration, our customs tariff comprised above a thousand articles, many of which were insignificant, and all but unproductive to the State. But Mr Gladstone has carried out the same practice on a very different principle. The tariff, as left by Sir Robert Peel, embraced above four hundred items; now it is restricted to about forty. Indeed, this branch of our revenue at present is raised almost entirely from sugar, tea, tobacco, spirits, wine, beer, corn, coffee, currants and raisins, timber, and pepper. This is objectionable in many respects. In the first place, it renders our revenue liable to be much more seriously affected by the fluctuations of trade and the condition of the masses of the people, than under the old system; and by concentrating taxation upon a few commodities, it makes the fiscal pressure more obvious and more felt, and furnishes proportionately greater scope for popular agitation. “When the public attention is fixed exclusively on a few leading and indeed necessary articles,” says Mr M’Culloch, “it is all but certain that the duties on them, even should they be moderate, will come to be looked upon as being, in no ordinary degree, objectionable and oppressive. But were a great variety of articles, suitable for the consumption of all classes, subject to duties, there would be but little probability of the public attention being concentrated on a few only.” And what are the few commodities which now furnish the principal part of our revenue? As we have seen, precisely those which are consumed in greatest quantity by the bulk of the people. There is no real inequality in the distribution of our taxation; for the Income-Tax, the Succession-Duties, &c., do not fall at all upon the lower classes, and have been framed so as to keep the balance of taxation equal between the rich and the poor. But we fear this fact will not be fairly considered by the masses, who, under the influence of demagogues like Mr Bright, are too prone to think themselves unjustly dealt with. Two months ago we pointed out this feature of Mr Gladstone’s financial policy, as one eminently
provocative of agitation against some branches of our revenue which it is indispensable to preserve. Mr M’Culloch holds a similar opinion. He says—
“When such duties apply to all kinds of things [the raw materials of industry and the prime articles of food being excepted], it is seen that they must affect, in one way or other, every class, and, indeed, every individual, and being merged in and forming a part of the price of the articles on which they are charged, they attract little or no attention. But such will not be the case with us in time to come. Consumption duties have ceased to be general, and are now (1862) unfortunately restricted to a few leading articles, comprising some of the principal necessaries and luxuries of the labouring poor. So striking and momentous a change cannot fail to rouse the public attention; and will, it is to be feared, give rise to a belief that it is essentially partial and unfair. And such belief will be better founded than it is at all desirable it should be; for, while we admit various luxuries of the rich and the great, including the most recherché wines, at very low duties, and many more, comprising, among others, the finest laces, velvets, porcelain, tablecloths, carpets, silks, gloves, ornamental furniture, bronzes, and so forth, free of all charge, we lay heavy duties on the tea and sugar, which are indispensable to the labouring poor, and heavier still on the tobacco, the spirits, and the beer which constitute their luxuries. Is it to be supposed that such a policy should be considered by the bulk of the people as other than unfair and offensive?”
It is a most important principle of judicious finance that the incidence of taxation should be as little felt as possible, and also that it should not only be fair, but be seen to be fair. We believe that the present taxation of this country falls very equally on all classes; but, unfortunately, under Mr Gladstone’s “reforms,” it has assumed an appearance of gross inequality. We have largely increased the spirit duties, and we have kept up the taxes on malt and beer, yet we have greatly reduced the duties on wine. Moreover, we have made the reduction of the duties on wines in such a way that the finest wines pay no more than the cheap wines. Several articles of luxury have likewise, under the operation of the French treaty, disappeared from the tariff, and their absence, though of no great importance as affecting the revenue, gives a handle to demagogues who desire to excite the masses against the taxation of the country. The “Financial Reform Association,” and the Radical party in general, could have no better ally than Mr Gladstone; and the chief result of his “popular”
Budgets will inevitably be to render our whole system of taxation extremely unpopular.
Mr Gladstone’s new Budget is less ingenious, less experimental, less obviously hazardous, than those which have preceded it. The balance is, in appearance at least, kept even between direct and indirect taxation: and the twopence off the income-tax, and the fivepence off the duties on tea, reduce these taxes to the level at which they stood prior to the Russian war. The modification of the Income-tax upon incomes between £100 and £200 a-year is an improvement. Mr Gladstone has also done well in admitting a past error of his, by abolishing the small charges on certain operations, of trade which he imposed in 1860, but which have been found exceedingly vexatious to commerce. Nor can any objection be taken to the change which he proposes to make on the taxation of railways, by which the tax on the passenger traffic is reduced from 5 to 3½ per cent, while the exemption at present enjoyed by parliamentary and excursion trains is abolished. His proposal to levy the Income-tax upon the revenues of corporations which are expended in charity, and on the income of endowed charities, is more open to question; and so are some of his other minor proposals; but the interests affected are not sufficiently powerful to offer much opposition to the Government.
The main facts of Mr Gladstone’s financial statement are briefly as follows. Warned by the strong expression of opinion on the part of the House in favour of a reduction of expenditure, the Government resolved to anticipate farther opposition by curtailing the estimates which the House had so reluctantly voted, and last year spent about £800,000 less than they had taken power to do. In respect to the Revenue, Mr Gladstone’s estimates were singularly at fault. As on previous occasions, his estimate of the Excise greatly exceeded the actual return, which this year has fallen short of his estimate by more than a million sterling. But the Income-tax yielded nearly half a million more than he calculated, and so have the Customs; and the total produce of the national taxes has been so favourable as to leave a surplus of about £400,000 above the estimate, and an excess of £1,300,000 above the expenditure. The revenue of the past year amounted to £70,603,000, the expenditure was £69,302,000: surplus £1,301,000. If the taxes were to remain on the same footing
this year, they would yield (according to Mr Gladstone) £71,490,000; and he proposes some trifling new taxes amounting to £133,000: together equal to £71,623,000. And as the estimated expenditure for the ensuing year is only £67,749,000 (£1,553,000 less than last year’s), the surplus at the end of the ensuing year, if the taxes were kept at their present rate, would be £3,874,000. But the proposed reductions of taxation, chiefly on the Income-tax and Tea-duties, will cause a loss of revenue in the ensuing year to the extent of £3,343,000; so that the actual surplus, as estimated by Mr Gladstone, will be £531,000. The Budget stands thus:
REVENUE.
Customs,
£22,737,000 Excise, 17,658,000
Stamps, 9,000,000
Taxes, 3,160,000
Income-tax, 8,675,000
Post Office, 3,800,000
Crown Lands, 300,000 Miscellaneous, 2,950,000
£68,280,000
EXPENDITURE.
Debt, £26,333,000
Consolidated Fund, 1,940,000 Army, 15,060,000 Navy, 10,730,000 Collection, 4,721,000 Miscellaneous, 8,965,000
£67,749,000
Surplus, £531,000.
The surplus which Mr Gladstone thus reckons upon this year is far below the amount which our best financiers consider requisite for
the maintenance of a sound system of finance. It is true, and we attach great weight to the consideration, that the present depressed state of an important branch of national industry renders it desirable that the taxation of the country should be reduced as low as possible. But this argument, unhappily, cuts two ways. For the same depression of trade, which calls for a minimum of taxation this year, to at least a similar extent places in jeopardy the surplus which the Chancellor of the Exchequer reckons upon. In his estimate of the produce of the excise, especially, we believe that he commits his usual mistake of being too sanguine. But the really hazardous feature of his Budget consists in this: That only a part of the proposed reductions of taxation will take effect during the ensuing year; and, therefore, the estimates which suffice for the financial year, upon which we have entered, will be inadequate for the year following. The reductions of taxation which will take place before April next will, as we have said, amount to £3,343,000; but the total yearly loss of revenue consequent upon the reductions proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, is £4,242,000; so that if they took entire effect during the present year, instead of a surplus of £531,000, there would be a deficit of £368,000. But of the loss on the Income-tax, £850,000 will only fall on the following year (1864–5), and £49,000 of loss from the abolition of some petty taxes will likewise be passed on to next year. Thus we obtain a surplus of £531,000 for the present financial year only by passing on to next year a loss of £900,000. If the finances had been in a thoroughly good condition, and if the state of the country promised to be prosperous, and our relations with other Powers peaceful, the heavy legacy of loss for the year 1864–5 might be contemplated with less alarm; for the experience of late years shows that, in ordinary times, the productiveness of the revenue tends to augment at the rate of £700,000 a-year. But this is not the case. And, moreover, as Mr Gladstone’s estimate of the miscellaneous receipts for the present year embrace half a million sterling of the China indemnity money—a payment which will not take place again—the deficit which we are preparing for the year 1864–5, is an exceedingly formidable one = £1,400,000.
This is the weak point of Mr Gladstone’s Budget. Suppose his expectations are fully realised—suppose he have a surplus at the end of this year of half a million, and that the productiveness of the taxes increase next year to the extent of £700,000 (which is not likely),—
there would nevertheless be a deficit in the year 1864–5 of £200,000. Such a result, the most favourable that can be expected, cannot be regarded with indifference. But this is not all. Is it not a fact that the balances in the Exchequer in March last year were £2,684,000 less than they were in 1860, when Mr Gladstone began his present financial administration? And as he does not take any account of that deficit in his new Budget, the deficit remains unprovided for, and of course renders his present financial programme doubly hazardous. It was only by the help of the two and a half millions abstracted from the Exchequer balances, and also by creating new Debt to the extent of £461,000, that he escaped bankruptcy during the two first years of his financial administration: and if he had been a Minister of ordinary prudence, he would have felt bound to replace those sums before he proceeded to make further reductions of taxation. But he is determined to produce popular Budgets, however dear a price the country may have to pay for them in the long run. He justifies anew the censure which Mr M’Culloch has passed upon such a system of finance. He makes the show of a surplus for the ensuing year, only by ignoring nearly three millions of deficit which he has accumulated in past years, and by preparing a new deficit for the year 1864–5.
Every proposal to reduce taxation is sure to be popular,—we are equally sure that the present reductions are exceedingly dangerous. It is one thing to cut down expenditure—and this, we conceive, was what the Conservatives last year urged upon the Government: it is quite another thing to dispense with a real surplus, to resign ourselves to a past deficit, and prepare for ourselves a new one. The errors of Mr Gladstone’s previous Budgets now begin to weigh heavy upon the national fortunes. The abandonment of the paper-duties has rendered our present financial position one of no ordinary embarrassment. Had these duties still been in operation, the present reductions of taxation, so desirable in themselves, and so repeatedly called for by the Conservative party, could have been effected without any risk. As it is, we think the financial position of the country eminently unsatisfactory and unsafe. Not only must we experience a deficit in the year 1864–5, but we are totally unprepared for any untoward contingencies in the present year. The peace of Europe (if peace it may be called) is obviously insecure; hostilities seem impending between this country and Japan; and our relations
with the Federal States of North America are such as, unhappily, and from no fault of ours, to render the occurrence of war between the two countries a contingency which cannot entirely be overlooked. But if any exceptional expenditure be forced upon us, how are we to meet it? Under Mr Gladstone’s management, the taxation of the country has been so concentrated upon a few articles of universal consumption, and the duty upon some of those commodities (such as spirits) has been so obviously carried to the highest possible point, that to increase the revenue from its present sources would be extremely difficult and unpopular. We cannot reimpose the old duties on wines, silks, gloves, and other articles embraced in the French treaty, for in respect to these we have sold our freedom of taxation to a foreign power. The paper duties are irretrievably abandoned; for, however impolitic may have been the abolition of those duties in times like the present, their reimposition would be a great hardship and injustice to the manufacturers who have made new arrangements in accordance with the abolition. A few months hence the same will be the case with the Tea-duties. A large increase of the Income-tax, and an issue of Exchequer bonds, are the only means by which we can hope to make head against an emergency. The surplus is merely nominal—the balances in the Exchequer cannot be further reduced,—and even the issue of Exchequer bonds can be resorted to only to a small extent, in consequence of Mr Gladstone’s repeated postponement of paying off, as they fell due, the amounts already in circulation. Over the term of Mr Gladstone’s present financial administration, as over his previous one, the country will yet have to write the words, so damnatory of the reputation of a statesman, Improvidus futuri. In the present aspect of affairs, we begin to think anew of his Budgets before the Crimean War; and we can only hope that the year 1864 will not be like 1854, and that the country will not find itself again in straits and embarrassments like those which proved wellnigh overwhelming ten years ago.
Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh.
1. ‘Prehistoric Man; Researches into the Origin of Civilisation in the Old and the New World.’ By Daniel Wilson, LL. D., Professor of History and English Literature in University College, Toronto; Author of the ‘Archæology and Prehistoric Annals of Scotland,’ &c. Macmillan & Co., Cambridge.
2. There is one instance of a fragment of human bone found in company with these flints, but we have heard doubts thrown on the nature of this fragment.
3. ‘The Life of General Sir Howard Douglas, Bart, G.C.B., G.C.M.G., F.R.S., D.C.L. From his Notes, Conversations, and Correspondence.’ By S. W. Fullom. John Murray, London.
4. Fact.
5. Heldreich (author of ‘An Essay on the Useful Plants of Greece’) finds it in a single oak forest in Elis.
6. According to the prevalent opinion: the high authority of Decandolle is the other way; he believes it indigenous in the South of Europe generally; but the contrary evidence is very strong.
7. It was noted as something semi-prodigious that a palm-tree took root at Rome, in the temple of Jupiter, on the Capitol, during the war with Perseus; and another in the pavement of Augustus’s house on the Palatine. Ampère, ‘L’Histoire Romaine à Rome.’
8. Diplomatic Correspondence, 1861, 1862. Washington.
9. The Times itself takes this view. After stating that “ no one doubts that Australia, like India, China, and other countries, has contributed to the prosperity of our trade by developing its own resources, pastoral, metallic, or otherwise,” it makes this important admission: “It is also true that Australia and California, by increasing enormously the quantity of gold in the world, have diminished its value; so that, even if the wealth of the country had not increased, its amount, as represented in gold [i. e. its value in money] would certainly have been larger. ” This alteration in the value of money since 1853 is the main explanation of the fact which seems to Mr Gladstone “ so strange as to be almost incredible,” but which he coolly attributes to “the legislation of Parliament setting free the industry and intelligence of the British people.” This, he says, is “the real and new cause that has been in operation,” and which has so marvellously increased the wealth of the country 20 per cent in eight years! But if this were the case, surely he need not cut his estimates so fine. A nation that has grown so enormously rich in a few years ’ time could well afford to keep a good balance at its banker’s i. e., in the Exchequer.
