Abstract

Basic elements of artistic (and other) creativity are the technical-professional skill and knowledge, the special talent and ability and the willingness or motivation; one of which being absent results in partially realised creativity like juvenile, frustrated or abandoned types, respectively. Psychometric scales have been developed to measure everyday and eminent creativity, which show that creativity correlates with higher psychoticism, impulsivity and venturesomeness scores and with lower neuroticism and conformity scores of the personality test employed in a general population. Among the psychological components of creativity are the cognitive processes, mood, motivation, and personality traits. Regarding mood, a theory of "inverted U" has been proposed as elevation of mood facilitates creativity to a certain point after what extreme increase has an adverse effect on achievement. Analysing psychopathology and creativity among various professions, higher rates of psychopathology, especially affective symptoms, have been found in art-related professions. Examples of immortal poets, writers, painters, sculptors and composers, having created invaluable cultural treasures for mankind, illustrate that many of them showed signs of mood alterations (unipolar or bipolar affective disorder spectrum) which were expressed in their artistic products.