Alain de Botton

John Armstrong

" What is art’s purpose? In this engaging, lively, and controversial new book, bestselling philosopher Alain de Botton and art historian John Armstrong propose a new way of looking at familiar masterpieces, suggesting that they can be useful, relevant, and – above all else – therapeutic for their viewers. De Botton argues that certain great works offer clues on managing the tensions and confusions of everyday life. Chapters on Love, Nature, Money, and Politics outline how art can help with these common difficulties – for example, Vermeer’s Girl Reading a Letter helps us focus on what we want to be loved for; Serra’s Fernando Pessoa reminds us of the importance of dignity in suffering; and Manet’s Bunch of Asparagus teaches us how to preserve and value our long&hyphen;term partners. Art as Therapy offers an unconventional perspective, demonstrating how art can guide us, console us, and help us better understand ourselves. "

Art as Therapy

Claudine

We hear a thousand times that we should love our neighbour and strive to be good spouses, but these prescriptions lose any of their meaning when they are repeated by rote. The task for artists, therefore, is to find new ways of prizing open our eyes to tiresomely familiar, but critically important, ideas about how to lead a balanced and good life. 

We might think of works of art that exhort as both bossy and unnecessary, but this would assume that an encouragement to virtue would always be contrary to our own desires. However, in reality, when we are calm and not under fire, most of us long to be good and wouldn't mind the odd reminder to be so; we simply can't find the motivation day to day. In relation to our aspirations to goodness, we suffer from what Aristotle called akrasia, or weakness of will. We want to behave well in our relationships, but slip up under pressure. We want to make more of ourselves, but lose motivation at a critical juncture. In these circumstances, we can derive enormous benefit from works of art that encourage us to be the best versions of ourselves, something that we would only resent if we had a manic fear of outside intervention, or thought of ourselves as perfect already.

‘As nature begins gradually to vanish from human life as a direct experience, so we see it emerge in the world of the poet as an idea.'  30 

The notion that art has a role in rebalancing us emotionally promises to answer the vexed question of why people differ so much their aesthetic tastes. Why are some people drawn to minimalist architecture and others to the baroque? Why are some people excited by their concrete walls and others by William Morris’s floral patterns? Our taste will depend on what spectrum of our emotional make up lice in shadow and a hence in need of stimulation and emphasis. Every work of art is emu with a particular psychological and moral atmosphere: a painting may be either serene or restless, courageous, or careful, modest, or confident, masculine, or feminine, bourgeois, or art, and our preferences for one kind over another reflects our vary psychological gaps. We hunger for artworks that will compensate for inner fragility and help return us to a viable mean. We call a work beautiful when it supplies the virtues we are missing, and we dismiss as ugly one that forces on us, moods or motifs that we feel either threatened or already overwhelmed by. Art holds out the promise of inner wholeness.

Imagine that we have fallen into a way of life that suffers from too much intensity, stimulation and distraction. Workis frantic acre three continents. The inbOx 1S clogged with 200 messages every hour. There is hardly time to refect on anything once the weekday starts. However, in the evening we are occasionally able to return to a perfectly symmetrical and ordered one-bedroomed house in the suburbs of Chicago (17). Looking out of the vast windows at an oak tree and the gathering darkness, we havea chance to resume contact with a more solitary, thoughtful self that had otherwise eluded us. Our submerged peaceful sides are given encouragement by the regular rhythms of the steel I-beams. The value of gentleness is confirmed by the delicate folds of a gigantic curtain that wraps around the elegant living space. Our interest in a modest, tenderhearted kind of happiness is fostered by the unpretentious simplicity of a terrace inlaid with limestone tiles. A work of art helps return to us the missing portions of our characters. 

Many sad things become worse because we feel we are alone in suffering them. We experience our trouble asa curse, or as revealing our wicked, depraved character. So our suffering has no dignity; it seems due only to our freakish nature. We need help in finding honour in some of our worst experiences, and art is there to lend them a social expression. 

Idealization in art has a bad name because it seems to involve endowing something or someone (a profession, a person) with virtues more glowing than they actually possess, while disguising an, imperfections with polish and subterfuge. In modern use, the notion idealization carries a pejorative charge, as the idealizing artist strips away whatever is awkward or disturbing, leaving only the positive. T worry is that if we are attracted to such simplified objects, if we prais them and take pleasure in them, we will do an injustice to reality. 

We might be doomed not by a lack of skill, but by an absence of hope. Today's problems are rarely created by people taking too sunny a view of things; it is because the troubles of the world are so continually brought to our attention that we need tools that can preserve our hopeful dispositions. 

We describe a work of art, which might include a family photograph, as successtul when it manages to foreground the elements that are valuable but hard to hold on to. We might say that the good artwork pins down the core of significance, while its bad counterpart, although undeniably reminding us of something, lets an essence slip away. It is an empty souvenir. 

The more difficult our lives, the more a graceful depiction of a Hower might move us. The tears ifthey come - are in response not to how sad the image is, but how pretty. The man who painted a picture of humble, beautiful chrysanthemums in a vase was, as his self-portrait suggests, intensely aware of the tragedy of existence (8,9). The self-portrait should put to rest any worry that the artist has presented us with a cheerful image out of misplaced innocence. Henri Fantin-Latour knew all about tragedy, but his acquaintance with it made him all the more alive to its opposites. Consider the difference between a child playing with an adult and an adult playing with a child. The child's joy is naive, and such joy is a lovely thing. But the adult's joy is placed within a recollection of the tribulations of existence, which makes it poignant. That's what 'moves' us, and sometimes makes us cry. t's a loss if we condemn all art that is gracious and sweet as sentimental and in denial. In fact, such work can only affect us because we know what reality is usually like.

Today's problems are rarely created by people taking too sunny a view of things; it is because the troubles of the world are so continually brought to our attention that we need tools that can preserve our hopeful dispositions. 

We might say that the good artwork pins down the core of significance, while its bad counterpart, although undeniably reminding us of something, lets an essence slip away. It is an empty souvenir. 

What we're worried about forgetting, however, tends to be quite particular. It isn't just anything about a person or scene that's at stake; we want to remember what really matters, and the people we call good artists are, in part, the ones who appear to have made the right choices about what to commemorate and what to leave out. 

The saying 'art for art's sake' specifically rejects the idea that art might be for the sake of anything in particular, and therefore leaves the high status of art mysterious and vulnerable. Despite the esteem art enjoys, its importance is too often assumed rather than explained. Its value is taken to be a matter of common sense. This is highly regrettable, as much for the viewers of art as for its guardians. What if art has a purpose that can be defined and discussed in plain terms? Art can be a tool, and we need to focus more clearly on what kind of tool it is and what good it can do for us.

Thesa Terheyden

Loved this book, cannot recommend it highly enough 

Steven Harrison

Emma Bose

Alain Botton

Two authorities on popular culture reveal the ways in which art can enhance mood and enrich lives - now available in paperback This passionate, thought-provoking, often funny, and always-accessible book proposes a new way of looking at art, suggesting that it can be useful, relevant, and therapeutic. Through practical examples, the world-renowned authors argue that certain great works of art have clues as to how to manage the tensions and confusions of modern life. Chapters on love, nature, money, and politics show how art can help with many common difficulties, from forging good relationships to coming to terms with mortality.

Art as Therapy

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