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What is the Relationship Between Creativity & Knowledge?

When someone creates an artwork, is creativity or knowledge used? Are they both used? Are they specific to only certain types of people? They seem like very different concepts, but they are deeply correlated to create good works of art. Creativity is the original ideas that we come up with in our imagination and knowledge is what we know, but both are needed to create things. 

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Creativity is what we come up with in our minds. The ideas that we think of for artworks, stories, and innovations. It allows us to create new things or tweak old ideas. Even though it is believed that creativity is something that only some possess, everyone has some level of creativity. Some just have a hard time learning to be more creative. It can be as simple as thinking of your favorite character in a setting you have yet to see them in, or more complicated like coming up with an idea for a new invention. Although everyone can use creativity to think of a design or idea that they like, it takes knowledge to be able to execute that idea. 

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Knowledge is what we know. It’s the information that we possess about various things. It’s usually thought of as knowing facts about a certain subject like science, but it’s also knowing how to do something. It could be knowing various recipes by heart, which car part goes where, the functions of the various parts of the brain, or how to use an electronic device. When pertaining to art, it’s knowing what colors would look best with others, what techniques to use, and how to use certain programs. However, knowledge isn’t as separate from creativity as most think. 

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Knowledge and creativity are similar in a few ways. Both can be improved upon if you use them. The more you try to think creatively, the easier it’ll become. The more you use your knowledge, the easier it’ll be to retrieve that information again. Both are also influenced by others. Seeing a piece of art or seeing someone create something can inspire you to create something, or someone could teach you a certain technique and how to make a good design. They’re both needed to create good artworks, too. Creativity allows you to think of an idea or design to make while knowledge lets you create it. Creativity doesn’t have to come first, though. There could be a skill or technique that you learned that makes you want to make something. Then the knowledge is there first and you just need creativity to think of what to use it for. 

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While creativity and knowledge seem very different since creativity is the unique ideas that we think of and knowledge is what we know, they are similar in some ways and both are needed in art. Creativity is used to come up with designs or stories, but those can’t be made without the knowledge of how to put things together or how grammar works. Creativity could also be used to just come up with ideas without using knowledge to make them come to life, or knowledge could be used to solve problems without using creativity to think outside the box. 

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