Do recognisable images/symbols makes us think: 'Oh well...this is clearly creative?'

I've been asking myself this question since I've first started looking into creativity. How recognisable or familiar does a 'thing' (the result of a creative process) has to be in order for us to say it is creative?

Take this example.

An interesting composition that promoted some very conflicted discussions amongst my participants. Some mentioned that this is clearly a 'viking' others have seen 'two people hugging' or 'an obvious bull'. (At this stage, I am certain that the more people see this example, the longer my list of identifiable figures/ symbols/images will be.)

I've looked at what my participants scored and the data was inconsistent, to say the least. Some placed this in the 'Most Creative' category, while others in the 'Least Creative'. And this is not all...When I've asked some of my participants why did they score this a humble 1/5 on my creativity scale (5 being most creative) they did say that 'something was missing'. On the other hand, the 5/5 scorers referred to this as 'clever'.

So...familiarity is what caused conflict in judgements?

Did some of my participants thought that this is perhaps too identifiable for them? to the point that it became uninteresting?leading them to think that is not creative at all?

Or was the very fact that they recognised this shape made them give this composition card the highest score?

Is this taking the whole complexity of judgement to another level?

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