[caption id="attachment_19899" align="aligncenter" width="2019"] "Flamenco." Photography by Flavio Grynszpan, 2011. Used under Creative Commons license.[/caption] It is easy to glamorize the gifts and benefits of artistic creativity, the unique sense of transcendence it brings to...

Animal exuberance, this mystery of play, is very close to (if not identical with) the basic impulse of genius in the arts. The power of great art to purge us—to release us, for a moment,...