My theme for the Blogging from A to Z challenge is Creativity. Today I look at being Dauntless in your quest for creativity!

Dauntless. Fearless. Bold. Incapable of being intimidated or discouraged.

Going for it.

To be creative, to create from your soul, you need to be dauntless.

Artists throughout history followed their creativity to the point of being considered rebels, or sometimes, crazy. Often, artists are at the forefront of major changes in society.

Some well-known rebel artists include:

Beethoven: An article on Ultimate-Guitar.com says Beethoven is “widely considered to be one of the best composers who ever lived…because he changed the face of music forever…[he] almost single-handedly took the world from the Classical Era of music to the Romantic Era, and managed to speak out against some of the injustices of the world in the process.”

The Impressionists: According to this article on Artelino.com, “Impressionism started as a rebellion of a few young artists in Paris around 1863 against a rigid art establishment. It took the Impressionist artists about 20 years before ridicule was replaced by recognition…Art critics called the paintings unfinished and declared the artists as madmen.”

The entire article is worth reading, if just for the mention of other unbelievable criticisms against the Impressionists.

1950s Poets and Painters:

The “Rebel Poets of the 1950s” who included Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, at that time, “were called anti-intellectuals, destroyers of language, and literary juvenile delinquents.”

“Rebel Painters of the 1950s” states:

“As with the poets of the period who challenged accepted literary standards to envelop their personal experiences within new formats, the painters of the 1950s created unique and distinctive images by merging their private states of imagination and feeling with innovative compositional structures.”

Jimi Hendrix: Rock ‘n Roll was a big part of the social changes of the ‘60s and ‘70s, and Hendrix was at the forefront playing his unique style of electric guitar. He was criticized for his version of the “Star Spangled Banner.” Check it out on YouTube.

Hendrix once said: “Music doesn’t lie. If there is something to be changed in this word, then it can only happen through music.”

Don’t be afraid of what others might think of your work. Your best work will come from inside you, and that will, in some way, be different from anyone else’s. Sometimes it will be different in a big way, and that’s when you have to be dauntless—and be proud of what you’ve created.

Be Creative! Be Dauntless! Be a rebel!