ABSTRACT
The author's first study of creative people was not primarily a study of the people as such, or even of the creative process, but rather a study of the effect of the use of alcohol upon artistic creation, in that case painting. The problem of selection of the sample was complicated by the fact that she wanted representatives of a range of types of painting, from fully abstract to fully representational. The author found both techniques of considerable help, when one used them to interplay with the historical record, and the type and content of painting. She also wants a group whose drinking habits ranged from the teetotal to the alcoholic, an item not ascertainable from art criticisms. There are only five painters in this group, and none of them is a representational painter. For this group, the stimulus may be simply something seen casually in passing which pleases or interests the artist.
