I wonder if this view is useful for studying the careers of scientists as well. I can certainly think of scientists who would fall into either category. Gauss and John Bardeen were probably artisans, whereas Einstein was more of a conceptual contributor.

Norbert Wiener might be something of an anomaly: A child prodigy who also had a pretty amazing career later in life. Although that's not surprising since Wiener is anomalous in a bunch of other ways as well.