The Arts are made of (Intelligent) Habits

Contrary to the traditional picture of “Art” as an autonomous realm separate from artisanal and technical activities, a view dating back to the second part of the eighteenth century, this paper claims that artistic practices are largely scaffolded by habits, understood as more or less flexible channelings of both organic and environmental energies. More precisely, the author suggests developing Dewey’s idea of “intelligent habits” as a conceptual tool that can solve the issue of the peculiar intelligence associated with artistic practices, as well as get rid of the picture of artistic creativity as involving a radical break with one’s habits. On the one hand, assuming that habits’ intelligence consists in their sensibility to the environment, artistic habits would appear to be one entailing an enhanced sensibility to changes in the situation in which they are embedded, and to the interactions that are occurring between doing and perceiving. On the other hand, rejecting the standard view of artistic creation as radically original, innovative, and solitary and assuming a view of it as embedded in a shared form of life, supported by a common sensibility, collective practices, and norms of conduct, allows us to focus on the creative side of intelligent habits, as well as to appreciate how enhanced creativity is grounded in previously established habits and produces new or renewed ones.