This paper is a focused consideration of artistic creativity in relation to different phases of the Hindu life cycle. Life history and psychological test data collected from 110 male Brahmin folk painters at an orthodox sacred pilgrimage center in western India are presented. Folk theories of creative process and the psychogenesis of creative energy for symbolic expressive behavior throughout the life cycle are related to recent theoretical interest in ego boundary maintenance, to Jungian psychoanalytic theory, and to Hindu notions of achieving psychological wholeness, balance, and augmented creative potential in later life. It is argued that artistic creativity does not necessarily decline with chronological age. Male painters asked to rank each other along a creativity continuum into three groups according to high or low degree of perceived creativity are discussed: mean ages for each of these painter-defined groups are presented. Scores on the Barron-Welsh Revised Art Scale from painters of all three groups are related to preferences for perceptual complexity, ambiguity, and asymmetry.
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