Monday, December 10, 2012

What is Reverse Inspiration?

When an artist creates a piece of art work, what usually has to occur or be present?  Inspiration.

Todd M. Thrash and Andrew J. Elliot came up with three components of inspiration: transcendence, evocation, and motivation.
"Transcendence refers to the fact that inspiration orients one toward something that is better or more important than one’s usual concerns; one sees better possibilities. Evocation refers to the fact that inspiration is evoked and unwilled; one does not feel directly responsible for becoming inspired. Finally, inspiration involves motivation to express or make manifest that which is newly apprehended; given the positive valence of this aim, inspiration is conceptualized as an appetitive motivational state. This tripartite conceptualization specifies inspiration’s formal properties rather than its content."

 Knowing what inspiration is, what exactly is Reverse Inspiration? No. It's not the idea of not having transcendence, evocation nor motivation, but rather the idea of taking an artist's piece of work and trying to interpret what their true inspiration was. So let us get on with it and further our creativity.