Seeds of Genius in the Early Lives of Two Eminent Creative Brothers: To Know Is Not Enough

• In Event: Closer Examination of Giftedness, Creativity, and Talent Through Focused Lenses

Abstract

This biographical study, triangulating interviews with artifacts and literature, focused on early lives of Walter and Roberto Burle Marx, eminent Brazilian brothers, with implications for educating bright children for creative adulthood. Walter, a musician, became a child piano prodigy, conductor, musical promoter, and composer; Roberto a renaissance man best known for landscape design, was also productive in other domains. The purpose was to understand their family lives, connections to their fields, social and cultural background, and early education that supported their unique development. Although sharing the same cultural/social milieu, unique pre-tuning, dissimilar intense interests, and different childhoods family experiences, and educations were evidenced. To know was not enough. Both developed expertise, insufficient to explain their creative genius.

Author

• Leonora M. Cohen, Oregon State University