In Search of Nikola Tesla Page 149

Tesla and Creativity IN SEARCH OF NIKOLA TESLA Tesla's genius also invites us to explore the whole nature of creativity. Such genius does seem to be present in certain individuals and cannot be reduced to something as simple as a very high IQ. It does, for example, seem to need a particular talent - for music, poetry, painting or mathematics, for example. In turn these talents may be partly physical in nature - eye-hand coordination, the ability to detect subtle patterns in sound, a particular sensitivity to words. But talent and intelligence by themselves are not enough, they must also be associated with an enormous drive that will not be diverted by obstacles in its path. Experience tells us that exciting new ideas are thick on the ground but it requires a special energy of application to push these ideas forward to the point where they can be realised in a practical way. Yet Tesla was no ordinary talented man, he was more the archetype of the 'lone genius'. For some reason the modern world – that associated with the nineteenth and twentieth centuries - had a tendency to put such figures on a pedestal. The Romantic movement loved the notion of the deaf genius Beethoven metaphorically shaking his fist at God. This notion is present in the paintings of Caspar David Friedrich – blasted oak trees, lone figures in isolated landscapes. It is associated with the notion of genius as being an individual who is a giant amongst pigmies and therefore exists outside the mores of society. In Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment the student Raskolnikov believes that he too is one of those Romantic figures who exists outside the laws of society. His poverty would be relieved by a robbery and so he steals from and murders a pawnbroker. Taken in a wider context, and in the long history of civilization, such notions of genius seem rather peculiar. If one looks at the painters of the pre-Renaissance period one sees craftspeople; artisans who banded together in a cooperative way. Such people worked quietly and almost anonymously to add their mark to a great building. These was no need for 'self-expression', or to imprint a personal ego onto a work of art. Rather than seeking to be original, unique or different the craftsperson and the iconmaker were more interested in breathing life into established forms and in working creatively within society. 149