Issue 47: Commonsense with Henri Matisse

We devote each newsletters to one of your primal powers. This week's power is Commonsense. Curious which area of human intelligence might help you the most? Take our diagnostic.

Imagine that you're a fine art painter at the top of your game. Unlike many of your peers, you achieve global success during your lifetime.

 

You're considered the founding father of Fauvism and you never lack for money or acclaim.

 

A passion for color drives and defines your work.

But your physical powers begin to fail.

 

Cancer surgery limits your mobility and age weakens your vision. You simply can't stand long enough to paint like you used to and, eventually, you struggle to see what's before you to paint. 

For Matisse, for whom art and color were the thing, the commonsense answer was simple: you keep making art.

 

Commonsense is matching the newness of the plan to the newness of the situation. Even though Matisse's bodily abilities had changed, the situation, to his mind, had not.

 

Art and color were still what mattered most. 

 

Matisse developed a series of adaptive tools, like brush extenders, to keep him painting from his wheelchair. 

 

When his vision made painting impossible, Matisse set up camp in his bed and cut colorful collages, some of which are considered among his best works.

Francesco Bini, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons. Henri Matisse (French, 1869–1954). *Blue Nude
II (Nu bleu II).* Spring 1952. Gouache on paper, cut and pasted, on white paper, mounted on canvas.

The more you familiarize with real-world, commonsense decisions of the past, the more you improve your own ability to calibrate your response to the challenge at hand. 

 

“Commonsense is famously the ability that distinguishes humans from AI, which can ace complex calculations yet fumble a decision obvious to children.” Primal Intelligence.

 

Next week, Intuition.

 

In the meantime, Angus's own commonsense is on display in this week's episode of Revisionist History in which Malcolm Gladwell explores the beauty of sharing Paw Patrol with his daughter and Angus remains resolute in his fight for children's imaginations.

 

Malcolm calls it “peak” Revisionist History.

 

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