It’s true: Art is good for you.
A flurry of recent research has shown that viewing art can be beneficial for your physical and mental health, and several projects have been launched to delve deeper into how art improves wellbeing.
Psychologically speaking, engaging with art has been shown to alleviate symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress as well as boost cognitive functioning and social skills. If this is the case, then how can we get the most out of these benefits?
“There is no optimal or ‘correct’ way to view art or to feel or respond to a particular artwork. How you respond is unique to you and your feelings, thoughts, and actions,” said Dr. Matthew Pelowski, an associate professor in Psychology of Cognitive and Neuroaesthetics at the University of Vienna. “But, rest assured that, at rather basic psychological and physiological levels, the broad strokes of your reaction are probably shared by many others.”
Dr. Pelowski founded the ART*IS Lab in 2020 to explore “art’s potential as a transformative agent in impacting our beliefs, our behaviors, health, and our bodies”.
Encounter at the museum, 2025
Danny Leyland
CHOI&CHOI
Viewing art has also been shown to alleviate symptoms of progressive neurological disorders, such as Parkinson’s. This is the particular focus of the Art Inquiry Lab at the Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands. “We are co-designing a receptive arts engagement program together with people living with Parkinson’s disease, artistic coaches, and museum partners, including the Rijksmuseum,” said Dr. Blanca T.M. Spee, head of the lab.
Dr. Ralf Cox, a professor of Psychology and Development of Aesthetics and Art Experiences at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, is part of the Interface for Measuring the Experience and Meaning of Art (iMEMA) research group. iMEMA has an interesting approach that includes digital tools and techniques to measure artistic experiences as well as the viewing of new media and digital art in its research. “Experiencing art is a fundamentally embodied and affective (and also social) sense-making process. Artworks are invitations for ‘engaging with’ and for ‘attuning to,’” he said. “They allow you to experience with the head, the heart, and the whole body.”
Here, the three psychologists offer up their tips on how best to approach art to help heal your mind and engage deeply.
1. Start by exploring what you see and feel
Looking at Looking #2, 2007
Max Hirshfeld
Hemphill Artworks
Before you try to interpret an artwork, you should begin with close observation, advises Dr. Spee. “Notice its visual elements: lines, colors, shapes, textures, and composition,” she said. “Then turn inward: what emotional or bodily response does the work evoke?”
In the field, this practice is known as perceptual and affective processing, which allows your experience to emerge from the direct encounter with an artwork rather than from prior knowledge.
“This makes the experience more grounded, personal, and open-ended,” Dr. Spee added. In this light, it’s worth reading the press release or exhibition text after engaging with the art rather than before.
2. Think about the meaning of the artwork
Thinking 2, 2021
Anna Navasardian
Ethan Cohen Gallery
Thinking it Over, 1981
William Stanisich
Andra Norris Gallery
After exploring your own response, it’s time to think about what the artist might be trying to express in the work, Dr. Spee told Artsy. Some of the questions she recommends asking are:
- How do the visual elements contribute to the expressiveness of the work?
- What themes, ideas, or contexts might be present in the artwork?
- What visual perspectives does the artist highlight by using different light variations or colors?
“A rich aesthetic experience often emerges from this back-and-forth: between personal meaning-making and interpretation,” Dr. Spee said. “Your associations—whether rooted in memory, emotion, or lived experience—remain central, while also opening space to engage with the artist’s intention.”
3. Consider how you move with the artwork
Untitled, 2025 Oil on canvas 9 x 12 in.
Elizabeth Tremante
Spinello Projects
You’ve likely never thought about how you move in front of an artwork while you’re viewing it, but Dr. Cox said this is an important part of our experience. “I’m not just talking about the large movements you make while walking through a museum or exhibition hall, or while circling around a sculpture, but also about the head movements and eye movements you make while scanning the work,” he said.
According to theoretical arguments and exploratory empirical research, the movements you make while you stand in front of a work—no matter how tiny—say a lot about how attuned you are to it and reflect your deepest emotions. “Likewise, allow yourself to be moved by movement,” Dr. Cox said. “Movement depicted in, or suggested by, the artwork—expressive, like in an abstract work, and representational, like in a figurative work—elicits movement in the viewer.”
In this sense, viewing visual art is not “fundamentally different from art forms like music and dance,” he said. Don’t feel compelled to stand still while you’re looking at art, and be mindful about what your movements may tell you about your response to a work.
4. Experience art with others—if you can
The Gatekeeper, 2025
Elizabeth Tremante
Spinello Projects
Dr. Cox says that viewing art with other people can add to our personal experience. “This kind of sharing emphasizes the experiential part of viewing art rather than the meaning of a work or the artist’s message,” he said. “I think people should embrace the unconscious, uncontrolled, and nonverbal layers of the shared experience.”
Much of this, he says, is expressed through “mechanisms of synchronization at various levels,” meaning that people viewing art together often share similar bodily movements, heart rate, brain activity, and more.
While it’s impossible to track your brain activity without scientific equipment, you can take notice of whether your movements mirror those of the person you’re experiencing art with. Try to discern what emotions those around you are expressing through nonverbal cues like gestures, movement, and stance. Are their visible reactions affecting your own?
5. Talk about your experiences with an artwork
Wyoming Conversation, 2025
Frank Hyder
Ethan Cohen Gallery
If you can’t share the viewing experience with someone else in the moment, then another way to deepen your engagement with art is to discuss it later. “If you had a particular response to an artwork that you think was important, meaningful, or even weird and disconcerting, talk about it with others,” Dr. Pelowski said.
You can talk about all of the things we’ve mentioned above: the environment the work was in (whether the space itself it was busy or quiet, or the exhibition it may have been a part of); your overall impression of the work; particular details in the piece that caught your attention; and what you gleaned about the artist or artwork from the labels or catalogue; the other people who were around you at the time.
The person you’re discussing the work with may have seen it before, but in an entirely different setting, or have learned different facts about it since, which can add further perspective to your own experience.
6. Try to view artworks multiple times
Vermeer: Young Woman Seated at a Virginal/Rijksmuseum, 2025
Joe Fig
Cristin Tierney
Dr. Pelowski also notes that our responses to a particular work are bound to a specific moment: they are unique to us as individuals but also to our ever-changing situations.
As a result, multiple visits might elicit different feelings. “If you come back tomorrow, get more or less sleep, see some other things before your visit, or change as a person, you might have a different reaction,” he said.
Be aware of your own feelings outside of the art experience: Are you tired, upset, relaxed, stressed, or ill? Has recent local or world news thrown a new perspective on an artwork or your experience of going to a museum (think about COVID, for example)?
Consider whether any of these may have affected your reaction to the artworks that you liked or didn’t like. Make a (mental or physical) note of your experience of a work on different occasions—have external factors changed your perception of a work, or have you changed as a person since your last visit (grown older, changed jobs, moved to a new place, become a parent, etc.)?
Or are the overall feelings you experienced persistent over time? “Seeking out the different ways that different artworks and different moments make us feel is one of the great joys of lifelong art engagements,” said Dr. Pelowski.
from Artsy News https://ift.tt/oIeOKSF
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