TY  - JOUR
AU  - Galenson,David W.
AU  - Jensen,Robert
TI  - Young Geniuses and Old Masters: The Life Cycles of Great Artists from Masaccio to Jasper Johns
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 8368
PY  - 2001
Y2  - July 2001
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w8368
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w8368.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
David Galenson
Department of Economics
University of Chicago
1126 East 59th Street
Chicago, IL  60637
Tel: 773/702-8258
Fax: 773/702-8490
E-Mail: galenson@uchicago.edu

Robert T. Jensen
UCLA School of Public Affairs
3250 School of Public Affairs Building
Box 951656
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1656
Tel: 310-825-9865
Fax: 310-206-0377
E-Mail: robertjensen@ucla.edu
AB  - There have been two very different life cycles for great artists: some have made their greatest contributions very early in their careers, whereas others have produced their best work late in their lives.  These two patterns have been associated with different working methods, as art's young geniuses have worked deductively to make conceptual innovations, while its old masters have worked inductively, to innovate experimentally.  We demonstrate the value of this typology by considering the careers of four great conceptual innovators - Masaccio, Raphael, Picasso, and Johns - and five great experimental innovators - Michelangelo, Titian, Rembrandt, C‚zanne, and Pollock. Recognition of the effect of an artist's methods on the timing of his contribution appears to solve a puzzle that has been recognized by art historians for more than a century.
ER  -