Beautiful art as a painkiller.
People who buy art may tell you they have fallen in love with a painting, that it transports them to some other place, time, experience, identity, emotional or mental state. Some feel that a work of art becomes a familiar friend, a focal point of contemplation or meditation, a portal to nostalgia or connection to secrets, dreams or private inner worlds, a conduit for communication, an expression of a shared reality or a symbol of a lesson learned or sought. Beautiful art can move people to tears, free them of emotional constipation reconnect them. But recently University research in Italy found that beautiful art can also act as a painkiller. Perhaps hospitals might like to trade their drab bland homogenous prints for more beautiful, evocative works.
Donna Williams
http//www.donnawilliams.net
author, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter.
