Marital and Family Therapy • Art Therapy • Encino, California

Psychotherapy + Art Therapy Blog

Psychotherapy + Art Therapy in Encino, CA

What if art museums were curated by therapists?

I just came across this fascinating article  in The New Yorker by Joshua Rothman about Alain de Botton, author of The Architecture of Happiness, and his theory of the therapeutic value of art. A quick excerpt from the article:

"Museums, de Botton believes, would be more energetic, unpredictable, and useful places if curators thought less like professors and more like therapists. Instead of being organized by period—“British eighteenth-century painting,” say—galleries could be organized around human-scale themes, like marriage, aging, and work. Rather than providing art-historical trivia, wall text might address personal questions: How do I stop envying my friends? How can I be more patient? Where can I find more beauty in my life?"

Read the full article here: http://www.newyorker.com/…/pa…/alain-de-bottons-healing-arts

What personal questions have you pondered when looking at great works of art? Have any particular works of art had therapeutic value for you?