The theory of creativity in art education

This article outlines a philosophical reflection on the question of teaching artistic creation. More specifically, the authors look at different ways of theorizing creativity, their descriptive ability to shed light on "what the artist does when he or she creates", and ultimately on the assistance these theories can bring to the educator (or artist) who wants to better structure his teaching or practice. In the first part, the author summarizes and analyses two approaches to artistic creativity which are now very popular in the philosophical, psychological, artistic and scientific literature: 1) valuable originality (called "classical creation") and 2) psychological ability (called "psychological creation"). It attempts to demonstrate that despite appearances, certain aspects of these theories make them unworkable in themselves and also for teachers who want to garner privileged information from them for their teaching. The second part tackles creativity as a "psychophenomenological process" and ex plains why, according to the author, this particular vision offers the best theoretical and pedagogical perspectives.