The Secret
This one’s for Chris.
You all know Monsieur St. James of course. The author of the leading blog Univers d’Artistes, he is at the centre of our nude photographic community and inspires us on a daily basis with his tireless dedication to showing us the very best that the nude photographic world has to offer. By sharing with us fantastic interviews, articles and most importantly the work of different photographic artists, Chris has created something unique and wonderful. But the real reason I’m mentioning him here is because he is probably one of the wisest men you’ll ever come across. Why? Because he has realised something which not many folks figure out: just how effective art can be as a healing tool.
A recent study at the Università degli Studi di Bari in Italy showed that when a group of people were asked to contemplate a series of paintings, their pain was found to be a third less intense when they were looking at beautiful artistic imagery. This has actually been known in the UK for some time. In another study by Dr Lee Elliot Major, research director at the Sutton Trust, it was demonstrated that paintings in hospitals really do help patients, both in terms of longevity and recovery times. I guess we are lucky here in the UK that our National Health Service thought that this research was important enough to actually do something about it as part of its national healthcare policy.
When I visited St Bart’s Hospital in London earlier this year, I noticed William Hogarth’s painting Pool of Bethesda (above) still hanging on the grand staircase, and even my local hospital (a shining beacon in free local healthcare) has a whole section of the hospital dedicated to the best and the brightest in the art world. As well as having its own art gallery, the entire corridor (which runs the entire length of the hospital and is nearly half a mile end to end) is covered in beautiful paintings donated by both talented patients and well known artists. Like many others, I have spent hours there drinking in the fantastic art (O.K. I admit the coffee there is pretty good too!)
Such exhibitions never fail to lift patients, to inspire them, to give them hope. The opportunity to enjoy something creative offers not only a distraction from physical discomforts and endless medical procedures, but it also gives focus and the invitation to participate in something more fundamental, more important than these crappy bodies we are trapped in. Through studying art, patients get to engage in something outside themselves, something more spiritual, and through this participation, so begins the healing process. The body may remain broken and in pain, but the mind, the soul, is growing, expanding in the presence of beauty, reaching for the eternal.
When my body is giving me hell, when I’m feeling pretty darn awful, what do I do? I go look at the finest that the photographic art world has to offer, and that would of course be the work of all you photographers reading this. If I appear to be getting overly sentimental, then do excuse me. Maybe the healing power of art is something you have to experience on a personal level before you realise its potential. But Chris and I, and thousands more like us, we know The Secret:
Art heals the spirit, which in turn heals the body.
And that makes you, the photographers and artists out there reading this, more valuable to us than you could ever know.
Ivory Flame
You all know Monsieur St. James of course. The author of the leading blog Univers d’Artistes, he is at the centre of our nude photographic community and inspires us on a daily basis with his tireless dedication to showing us the very best that the nude photographic world has to offer. By sharing with us fantastic interviews, articles and most importantly the work of different photographic artists, Chris has created something unique and wonderful. But the real reason I’m mentioning him here is because he is probably one of the wisest men you’ll ever come across. Why? Because he has realised something which not many folks figure out: just how effective art can be as a healing tool.
A recent study at the Università degli Studi di Bari in Italy showed that when a group of people were asked to contemplate a series of paintings, their pain was found to be a third less intense when they were looking at beautiful artistic imagery. This has actually been known in the UK for some time. In another study by Dr Lee Elliot Major, research director at the Sutton Trust, it was demonstrated that paintings in hospitals really do help patients, both in terms of longevity and recovery times. I guess we are lucky here in the UK that our National Health Service thought that this research was important enough to actually do something about it as part of its national healthcare policy.
When I visited St Bart’s Hospital in London earlier this year, I noticed William Hogarth’s painting Pool of Bethesda (above) still hanging on the grand staircase, and even my local hospital (a shining beacon in free local healthcare) has a whole section of the hospital dedicated to the best and the brightest in the art world. As well as having its own art gallery, the entire corridor (which runs the entire length of the hospital and is nearly half a mile end to end) is covered in beautiful paintings donated by both talented patients and well known artists. Like many others, I have spent hours there drinking in the fantastic art (O.K. I admit the coffee there is pretty good too!)
Such exhibitions never fail to lift patients, to inspire them, to give them hope. The opportunity to enjoy something creative offers not only a distraction from physical discomforts and endless medical procedures, but it also gives focus and the invitation to participate in something more fundamental, more important than these crappy bodies we are trapped in. Through studying art, patients get to engage in something outside themselves, something more spiritual, and through this participation, so begins the healing process. The body may remain broken and in pain, but the mind, the soul, is growing, expanding in the presence of beauty, reaching for the eternal.
When my body is giving me hell, when I’m feeling pretty darn awful, what do I do? I go look at the finest that the photographic art world has to offer, and that would of course be the work of all you photographers reading this. If I appear to be getting overly sentimental, then do excuse me. Maybe the healing power of art is something you have to experience on a personal level before you realise its potential. But Chris and I, and thousands more like us, we know The Secret:
Art heals the spirit, which in turn heals the body.
And that makes you, the photographers and artists out there reading this, more valuable to us than you could ever know.
Ivory Flame
Labels: health, IvoryFlame
posted by Lin at 9:28 AM
7 Comments:
A wonderful post ! You're so right... Take care my dear Lin !
Art is therapeutic. Those of us who have spent a lifetime with the arts have our own private cures, and I would say ALL arts.
I have found solace in reading great literature (Hemingway said in a famous interview that he read "King Lear" once a year; it cheered him up), in listening to music, and in gracing my home with works of art, the dominant master being Sandro Botticelli whose work uplifts me with its colors and shapes.
So here's to you, Mrs. Fluffytek! A favorite film can do it, too, such as "The Graduate" or "Rain Man." Heaven holds a place for those who create.
Thanks for the wisdom Dr L. If books can indeed heal the soul, my oldest son asks me to ask you how he can survive Of Mice and Men. After spending 4 hours today analyzing the key characters for school prep, he says he finds it incredibly depressing and his soul has been shriveled to a dried up husk!
Catharsis. Tell him CATHARSIS. That is the purpose of tragedy. He is supposed to feel uplifted that the gods have smiled on him and that he is not Lenny. That is why Hemingway said "King Lear" cheered him up, and Hemingway was not a cheerful writer.
I am supposed to consider "Of Mice and Men" and quit complaining about getting nuked.
That would be ancient wisdom.
He may be feeling the way I felt when I visited the Vatican art museum and saw image after image of martyred saints. It was not uplifting at all. All those people tortured by wheels and arrows and crosses ruined my lunch.
But it's still therapeutic, according to the Great Faith. The ecstatic looks on the saints' fine arts faces are supposed to tell us how to suffer.
I don't know. He has my sympathy. I will never sit through another production of "King Lear." For some of us, it's just too much.
Check my site dear Lin ! I've made my best to glorify your wonderful text. This kind of article is precious, it gives a new reason to create, and to hope.
Take car of you.
Your Chris
"The concept of total wellness recognizes that our every thought, word, and behavior affects our greater health and well-being. And we, in turn, are affected not only emotionally but also physically and spiritually."
Greg Anderson
American Author of ''The 22 Non-Negotiable Laws of Wellness''
Nice of Chris to re-post on his site.
Next time I'm feeling poorly I hope the red cross girl will show up at my door. Oh sorry ... I'm just supposed to LOOK at the picture. I Feel better already.
:-)
I'm sorry I shouldn't make light of something that has made the two of you, who have had serious illness, feel and be better. I hope the power of art continues to lighten your burdens.
D.L. Wood
Just now getting to post on this, but wonderful post. You and I both see Chris in the same light. And doesn't he do the best at "RePosting"?
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