Negative Capability: The Genius of Keats and Einstein

“To develop a complete mind: Study the science of art; Study the art of science. Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.”

– Leonardo Da Vinci

Left image is a photograph of Einstein by Yousuf Karsh. Right image is a painting of the poet John Keats.

There exists a deeply held belief that madness and creativity share a special kinship. They do not. However, they may have certain similarities and be confounded. From caricatured depictions of Edgar Allan Poe as some perverse storyteller whose ideas were simply the product of his own sick mind to the false portrayal of actually schizophrenic adherents to “Game-Theory” dogma as genuine “geniuses” (as in the movie A Beautiful Mind), popular culture has often dwelt on the similarities between creativity and madness, but not the areas where they diverge. Indeed, the idea that one was the result of the other is not unpopular. The differences between the two states of mind are seldom a conscious object of investigatio…