Baron Pierre de Coubertin was a creative spirit from a young age. His father was a classical painter and his mother played the piano and he grew up treasuring the arts.  As a young adult in Paris, the world capital of creativity, he came to appreciate the power of art and culture as a social force.  In his studies of the ancient world, and particularly the expression of art and culture at archaic Olympia, he found confirmation for his ideas that sport and art belonged together—and he believed both should serve as key components in modern education.  In this passage, from his 1901 article, “Art in Education,” he emphasized the importance of encouraging creativity in the classroom.   

“The seeds of art are mysterious, full of caprice and oddity. They experience sudden growth spurts and long periods of dormancy, superficial speed and fruitful delays ... By teaching children to use a crayon and brush, to understand perspective and to evaluate distances, to learn to read music and to sing, one makes available to their potential capacities the instruments that they will need in order to grow, no matter what. Education of the eyes, the ears, and the fingers is never wasted on anyone.”

Paul Cézanne’s Cesto de manzanas from 1895 captures the sense of caprice and mystery the Baron referred to.