Do Habits Kill Creativity? Lessons from 19th-Century France

When we talk about habit, we’re typically describing practices that become instinctual or routine, things that no longer require thought. And so it’s often blurring the lines between a conscious skill and then a mechanical reflex. And that’s where things become a bit difficult for drawing instructors, where they don’t want it to just become a mindless reflex. They want it to be something that’s consciously thought out.

Imagine a world where drawing is seen to be a skill that’s as essential as reading and writing. That world existed in 19th-century France.
Artists, instructors, politicians and society alike were eager to discuss the creative potentials associated with drawing education. How do you teach students to innovate and not just imitate? And at the heart of some of these issues was this question of habit. And so in a rapidly industrializing world, mechanization is at the forefront. But it’s something that is also making people quite anxious about what education can do to humans, and whether humans will become nothing more than mindless automaton.

In the case of 19th-century France, habit was something that touched every part of life. It was not just crucial to philosophical discussions. It was not just practical concern in the classroom, but it was also something studied by medical physicians and scientists alike. It’s the moment where we have the development of this idea of muscle memory, and it’s seen as something that perhaps governs human existence.

And that’s why we also call it second nature. Drawing, though, is not just a technical skill that was important to the fine arts. It was equally important to a range of spheres, including industrial design, the sciences, and general education alike. And so in this moment, drawing is democratizing. It’s seen as a useful skill. And so drawing becomes not just a technical tool.

And so it’s at this moment, around 1850, that France is particularly anxious about its cultural supremacy in the world and its economic hegemony. And in part, what happens is that Britain stages its first world fair, the Crystal Palace exhibition. And in this moment, France is realizing its weakness that it’s not industrializing or advancing as fast as England is. And so in this moment, France and its critics start to issue warnings about lagging behind and the effects this might have on the nation. And one of the perceived solutions is to develop drawing programs and to democratize this.

How can we prevent students from developing habits that might lead them to be stuck in routinized or outdated ways of creating something, but how can it generate something new and unique? And this was typically, at least in art historical narratives, habit is often seen as something bad, and this is where I challenge existing narratives. Perhaps our deeply ingrained suspicion of habit that lingers today is something that prevents us from understanding others who saw it differently, as something that can support mastery or proficiency.

And so you might think about skills like learning to ride a bike or things that, through practice, rise to the level of instinct and become automatic. You might also think of things that show proficiency or skill, like playing a violin by heart. Drawing becomes not just a technical tool for the arts, for industry, but it’s also a way of training the self. Training humans to see, to think and to behave within a rapidly changing world.