Creativity

This article may lend undue weight to certain ideas, incidents, or controversies. Please help improve it by rewriting it in a balanced fashion that contextualizes different points of view. (June 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Creativity is the ability to form novel and valuable ideas or works using one's imagination. Products of creativity may be intangible (e.g., an idea, a scientific theory, a literary work, a musical composition, or a joke), or a physical object (e.g., an invention, a dish or meal, an item of jewelry, a costume, or a painting).

Creativity may also describe the ability to find new solutions to problems, or new methods of performing a task to accomplish a goal. Therefore, creativity enables people to solve problems in new or innovative ways.

Most ancient cultures (including Ancient Greece, Ancient China, and Ancient India) lacked the concept of creativity, seeing art as a form of discovery, rather than a form of creation.^{[citation needed]} In the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition, creativity was seen as the sole province of God, and human creativity was considered an expression of God's work; the modern conception of creativity came about during the Renaissance, influenced by humanist ideas.^{[citation needed][clarification needed]}

Scholarly interest in creativity is found in a number of disciplines, primarily psychology, business studies, and cognitive science; however, it is also present in education and the humanities (including philosophy and the arts).