Creativity results from a crisis in perception when we do not have the intellectual givens to understand what we are perceiving. We are force to invent from whatever information we have stored, consciously or unconsciously, when confronted with new situations in our environment in order to survive in it. This process is very ancient probably always part of the genus homo from it's earliest roots and which evolved into what we now understand as symbolic thought. This fundamental change in perception was at the root of the 15th century Renaissance and is operational today as we are faced with the changes which force us to question the mechanical paradigm of that Renaissance and invent the paradigm for our time. That change has been prefigured in the artistic invention over the last 150 years and points to new ways of seeing and understanding our world.