Giving a clear answer to the question, whether artistic people are more intelligent in any way than others is difficult. Nevertheless, yes, creative people who make art in any way imaginable are very likely to be more intelligent than others but yet mainly outside the regular IQ.
All about art and how it affects different regions of our brains and if creativity correlates with intelligence
If drawing and painting artists, in general, are more intelligent or have somehow different brain structures than non-artists are questions I've been asking myself for a long time now! You, too? Here you'll find the answers to these questions.
Are artistic people extraordinarily intelligent?
Giving a clear answer to the question, whether artistic people are more intelligent in any way than others is difficult. Nevertheless, yes, creative people who make art in any way imaginable are very likely to be more intelligent than others but yet mainly outside the regular IQ.
This is a very, very, very (please add at least 10 more "verys") controversial question. Answering the question with yes is, unfortunately, offending many people who believe to be non-artists.
So, what is creating art really doing to our brains and what is artistic intelligence?
I. The Problem With Intelligence & Creativity Ratios
As I have now researched this question, read articles over articles, watched videos dealing with that topic I can definitely say that the answers to the main question today are 50% of people saying "yes, artists are more intelligent" and the other half stating the exact contrary.
Creative people seem to be very smart in comparison to non-artists but apparently a study has shown in 2013 that having a high IQ does not correlate with being creative.
What should we believe now? What is it that art does to our brains?
The psychologist and author M. Csikszentmihalyi states that having an above-average IQ can contribute to creative abilities. He also states having an IQ over the value of 120 isn't a way to higher creativity.
The problem with these statements, however, is that IQ tests for a fact do not measure creative intelligence!
Nor do they measure any other kind of innate intelligence. The number, your intelligence quotient that is supposed to represent your intelligence doesn't tell you how creative you are.
What does your IQ even say about yourself? Let me be frank about this, you're IQ merely shows you how fast you're able to understand and solve academic problems. That's it. This has literally nothing to do with imagination, creativity or emotional problem-solving.
Do you ask yourself now, if and if so, how producing artworks does actually affect your brain?
I have had this question floating around in my mind since I've been 14 or 15 years old now and today I've finally researched it and found multiple ways to answer this question.
The first thing, you can very clearly and undoubtedly say is that artists' brains are different than the ones of non-artists in certain ways. This fact has been scientifically confirmed which leads us all pretty quickly to the assumption that creating art is affecting our brains massively.
I can take this out of the way now. Creating art does affect our brain and enables us to grow new abilities, learn new skills besides the creation of art itself. Let's have a look together at what these things are.
How does art affect the brain?
Art viewing and especially creating art itself affects our brain in multiple ways. It enhances our well-being, consciousness, and the brain functionality in general.
Specifically, there are 4 main effects that viewing and making art have on the brain. Art provides us with the following benefits:
Learning Facilitation Consciousness Alteration Blood Flow Supplied To The Brain Health Maintenance
1. Creating art and even only viewing art on a regular basis will have an impact on your learning process concerning education at school or at university for example. It does in a positive way of course.
Our different natural abilities that include attentional, emotional and motor skills, for example, are very important for learning something disregarding what it is that we're learning.
Drawing something yourself or learning about it reinforces and enhances all of these natural skills which leads to better performances at school, etc. Creating and viewing art is, without a doubt, a great possibility to improve your capability to learn.
2. Before I started to draw I have often heard that you are able to "see the world differently" as an artist or "look at everything in a totally new light". Chances are you have heard such things already, too.
I've always thought, what a bunch of crap that has to be... just because you learn how to draw you will instantly see everything differently. Sure.
Well, I started to draw and it was as I expected. Nothing has changed in my way of perceiving our world, my surroundings. BUT now, after approximately one year I slowly start to notice something change.
I definitely start to see some things with new eyes and I think I have an explanation for that phenomenon. As an artist one day or another you have to deal with the fact that there is also a lot of theoretical stuff to know about art and drawing.
Only a few weeks or not more than 2 months ago I started to read about these very theoretical topics and especially one thing has fascinated me in particular. I'm talking about the five basic skills of perception .
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It's about how to see things with the right side of the brain and detecting specific things such as edges or light and shadow. It is mandatory for every painter or pencil artist to know about these five basics.
I think especially reading a lot about this subject has granted me the ability to slowly start seeing things more precisely. I don't walk to the bus anymore staring at the ground or straight forward but now I'm interested in looking at everything that surrounds me.
Being aware of all these things and looking at them as if I was about to draw them is a totally new experience for me.
I guess this is what all these people mean talking about how artists see the world differently. I love this advantage of my relatively new hobby.
I am proud to be able to hereby confirm the second benefit of art using my own experience.
3. Moving on now to another great advantage art viewing and creating comes along with. It is about the increased blood flow to your brain. Looking at art and creating it by all the various possibilities there are increases the blood supply for the brain.
According to some study (I forgot where I've ready about it, I'm sorry.), the part in our brain that is responsible for the emotion pleasure is supplied with 10% more blood when you're merely looking at artworks of any kind.
Landscape paintings tend to be the most effective when it comes to the blood flow increase in our brains. So, I guess this, at last, clears up the question, whether art has an impact on the brains or not.
4. In contrast to the image of an artist being a loner that many people have in their heads the exact opposite is the case. According to the Research Center for Arts and Culture loneliness is experienced a lot less by artists than by non-artists.
At the very first you need to understand the difference between loneliness and being alone. Loneliness is the terrible feeling of being disconnected from everything around you or the feeling of being excluded.
That makes it also possible to be lonely in a group of people when you're being neglected and excluded from conversations.
Being alone can lead to loneliness but it doesn't necessarily because being alone and loneliness aren't synonyms. Being alone can even be essential for an artist.
Being alone is most likely to enable an artist to tap his or her full potential. Sitting on a sofa in a quiet home with no one else around is a perfect time and location to let your mind be free.
This is what many artists use for daydreaming sessions. Daydreaming makes everyone reach peaks of creativity as you maybe remember from classes at school years ago. Anyway, I do and the daydreaming parts are probably the best memories of school I have considering all that blah blah.
Well, being alone means loneliness for most people which can often lead to severe mental problems. For the artist being alone means a whole lot of opportunity to progress. Either through daydreaming or the actual execution of art creation.
Both are ways to use the time alone perfectly for progress in whatever art you're focussing on as an artist. A musician would normally use every second alone to work on a new text, train his voice, record a few tests or work on the effects of an already recorded song.
Long story short, artists are role models for everyone not to use times when you're alone for negative thoughts or binge-watching a Netflix series. You don't have to be lonely when you're alone.
Use your time alone to advance in an already existing passion or try something new to build up your creativity and to grow as a person.
Creating art means for the creative person doing it a way lower chance of suffering from depression one day. The fact that artistic people are more rarely feeling lonely than others prevents them from suffering from these mental issues.
Art also reduces stress and helps your mind to calm down after a stressful day filled with work, arguments with the family or fights with friends. Expressing yourself freely by creating artworks enables you to relax deeply and focus on yourself.
The relaxing effect of art also contributes to mental health. So we know now that art leads to a healthy state of mind. As you may know, mental health is in many ways connected to physical health which makes artistic people overall healthier than others.
Concluding we can undoubtedly say artists receive a lot of benefits from using their creativity to create something. The positive effect of art on mind and body has been one major reason for me to get into that topic by the way. Maybe it will be for you, too now.
II. Why Artists Are Emotionally Intelligent
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Emotional intelligence can be measured with the so-called emotional quotient (EG) just as academic intelligence is measured using the IQ. Emotional intelligence is the ability to detect, grasp and analyze your own emotions.
This type of intelligence is also needed to understand social situations correctly in terms of the emotions of others. People with very high emotional intelligence are able to communicate, empathize and generally interact effectively with others.
A high EQ also leads to higher chances of being extraordinarily successful in solving social disputes, helping friends, for example, to set aside a fight. Are you known for doing so often?
Ask yourself questions like these:
- Am I capable of analyzing the feelings of the ones around me accurately?
- Am I able to communicate with other people in a way that enables me to get my goals
- Am I empathizing quickly with others?
- Am I overcoming rhetorical and social challenges?
- Am I defusing conflicts with ease?
- Am I managing my relationships to the pleasure of all parties?
Did you answer more than half of these questions with "yes", chances are you have a high EQ. That's great news! That's what it's about when creating valuable art.
A huge section and in my personal opinion even the most important one in creating art is for the artist to connect with the consumer of his or her artworks on an emotional level. My personal goal is to reach this stage of professionalism with drawing.
Most artists try to achieve this and therefore you clearly have to possess enough emotional intelligence. Artists who have already reached the stage of being able to connect with viewers of their art therefore usually have a rather high EQ.
Certainly, not every person on this planet who grabs a pencil and draws a few wild lines on a piece of paper once is emotionally intelligent. Actually, not at all, but let me tell you one thing finishing this section of the article:
With enough practice on a regular basis, you are able to grow a strong understanding of emotions and build up a high IQ. If you already have a high EQ this will help you tremendously in your drawing journey!
III. Are Artists Born "Intelligent"?
Whether some people are born with specific artistic skills is extremely doubtful but it still has to be researched. There aren't yet any valuable studies that would confirm these assumptions.
Haven't we previously in today's article discussed whether and how drawing, for example, affects the brain in some ways? Yes, we have but do these affections make artistic people intelligent? We do not know yet due to insufficient scientific research.
Keep working you lazy scientists...
The results of creating art we've gone over in the first section here I like to call "artistic intelligence". By that, I clearly state that drawing, painting, making music, sculpting or every other kind of art is building a certain way of intelligence.
A way of seeing things differently and often more clearly than others, grasping problems of any kind faster or being able to communicate effectively and understanding emotions correctly is definitely what makes someone intelligent in my opinion.
This definition of intelligence does differ depending on everyone individually and it is okay to understand intelligence differently since not until now there is a quotient combining all the possible aspects of intelligence.
Summarizing you could say that exerting artistic exercises allows you to create some kind of intelligence and new abilities but no one is born an artist and no actual artist is born an artist.
IV. Related Questions
1. Does IQ Measure Creativity?
IQ tests only measure certain academic capabilities. Creative, emotional or any other kind of so-called innate intelligence is not being measured by IQ tests at all.
2. What Is The True Sign Of Intelligence?
Albert Einstein once said the true sign of intelligence was not knowledge but imagination. Knowledge can be possessed by anybody. A strong imagination and problem-solving thinking are things that make you intelligent.
3. Which Part Of The Brain Controls Creativity?
The so-called frontal cortex is the part in our brains which is mostly responsible for the execution of creative tasks.
4. What part of the brain does art stimulate?
Art viewing stimulates the ventral striatum and it enables the brain to activate the hypothalamus as well. Latter is responsible for appetite control. Additionally to these two, art conditions the orbitofrontal cortex. This area is inter alia used to analyze and utilize rules in social situations accurately.
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Photo: Greta Hoffman
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