Tag: Art Essays
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Mental illness in art
JMS PearceHull, England It is often said that creative art is linked to eccentricity, sometimes bordering on madness. Examples abound of great musicians, writers, and artists who at some time in their lives were deranged and often committed to institutions for mental illness. Some ended their lives in suicide. To what extent is art inspired…
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Falls and art: An evolving story
Glenn ArendtsMurdoch, Australia Coming to rest inadvertently on the ground:1 the World Health Organization (WHO) definition of a fall sounds vaguely patronizing, bordering on disinterested. The human act of staying upright is a complex triumph of the integration of neurosensory, musculoskeletal, and cardiovascular systems, and its failure is associated with injury, fear, and embarrassment. Ancient…
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Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam
Jessica LoboLondon, Ontario, Canada Michelangelo painted some of his most famous work on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, covering it with the world’s most beautiful frescoes, of which The Creation of Adam is the most iconic.1 He worked during the Italian Renaissance, and this was a time when “the personality of the Western artist became a…
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Art therapy: a historical perspective
Mirjana Stojkovic-IvkovicBelgrade, Serbia Art therapy is a form of psychotherapy that uses the creation of art to help resolve psychopathological conflicts. It helps people to identify psychological weaknesses and see problems from a different perspective, enabling them to escape from repetitive self-destructive behavior. Art therapy improves personality, self-image, and self-acceptance, resulting in an improved quality…
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Partners in healing: An early renaissance painting depicting the partnership of the divine with the physicians Cosmas and Damian
Susan Brunn PuettJ. David PuettChapel Hill, North Carolina, United States In many cultures the practice of healing was perceived as a combined effort by physicians and the divine. Florentine Renaissance hospitals had churches and cloisters in their complexes where displayed works of art reminded patients and their families of God’s curing powers. Meant to invoke…
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The painter and the potter: voices in color and texture
Florence GeloPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States Drawn to this painting of a vase at the edge of a table, I pause and think, “Don’t we all live on the edges of life, on stratums of the precarious and uncertain?” Jimmy Lueders’ Armand’s Pot II projects from the wall on which it hangs at the Woodmere Art…