A Fascinating Look At When The World's Greatest Creative Minds Peaked

Are you past your creative prime? Visual journalist, Oliver Uberti, plotted the lives of 177 artists, composers, poets, scientists, and software developers from the year 1300 to today and discovered you very well might be.

Uberti chose a signature work for each and used black dots to represent when they completed it. "When choosing between, say three operas by one composer, I went with the one that blew my hair back," he said. The line colors correspond to the industry each creative is in and the line length is their age.

Uberti found that 60% of these masterpieces were created by people in their thirties and forties. Marie Curie discovered radioactivity at 31, Michelangelo finished the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel at 37, and Gustav Mahler completed his epic Fifth Symphony at 42. 

You can read more on his process here, which he describes as experimental, not scientific. 

With the rate of the current tech boom, we should expect to see these creations at even younger ages. Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, and David Karp all created their most famous accomplishments to date in their twenties.

Uberti discussed this topic further for a TEDx Talk he gave in April 2013.

Watch here: