Art as Therapy

by Alain de Botton, John Armstrong

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780714872780
Publisher:	Phaidon Press
Publication date:	10/24/2016
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	375,456
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Alain de Botton is the author of bestselling books, including The Consolations of Philosophy, How Proust Can Change Your Life, Status Anxiety, and Religion for Atheists. He founded The School of Life in 2008, an organization which - from branches around the world - supplies good ideas for everyday life in the form of books, workshops, and talks. In 2009 he founded Living Architecture, which makes high-quality architecture accessible to everyone.

John Armstrong is a philosopher and art theorist based at Melbourne University in Australia. He is the author of several well-received books, including The Intimate Philosophy of Art, and Conditions of Love.

Editorial Reviews

'A cultural cure for what ails you.' – Elle

'A highly optimistic vision... Roams widely through subjects as immense as love, nature, money and politics. De Botton and Armstrong's examination of love is most rewarding.' – Royal Academy of Arts

'Massages the mind in all the right places.' – Vanity Fair

'...Like going back to college, but in a good way... A little bit like dipping in to a modern day Gombrich albeit through the eyes of Oprah... A really entertaining and thought-provoking look at the role that art plays – or could play – in our lives. [...] Part philosophy, part art history, the book takes work that is considered by many to be lofty and rarified, and relates it to our everyday lives. [Art as Therapy] makes the reader consider the work far more intensely and deeply than perhaps we otherwise would.' – A Little Bird

'A true meditation on the power art has to transform our lives.' – The Mayfair Magazine

'The beautifully designed and illustrated book, Art as Therapy argues for a new way of using art to help us with a variety of psychological ills.' – The School of Life

From the Publisher

09/02/2013
What is art for? The School of Life founder de Botton (How Proust Can Change Your Life) and University of Melbourne art historian Armstrong (The Intimate Philosophy of Art) propose a profoundly refreshing and heterodox approach to art as a “therapeutic medium” that can help people access “better versions of themselves.” Upending the art world’s self-referential culture, the book assigns seven functions to art: “Remembering,” “Hope,” “Sorrow,” “Rebalancing,” “Self-Understanding,” “Growth,” and “Appreciation.” The most novel moments come from lessons the authors glean from an eclectic range of works. Manet’s reflections on the mundane in the painting, Bunch of Asparagus, can instruct us to “re-evaluate and re-desire our partners.” A brooding sculpture by Richard Serra teaches us about dignity and the honor of sorrow. The authors formulate an intellectual framework for artists—one that includes the conflicts and virtues of love, for example—to give art an educational goal. However, such an agenda clearly favors one-dimensionality over the complex or ambiguous. Related themes tackled here include money and politics, with the authors arguing for “enlightened investment.” Scarcely convincing, though, is the case for progovernment censorship. Nevertheless, the proposal that art dealers function as therapists, that museums be organized into galleries of suffering and compassion, and that scholars “analyze how art could help with a broken heart” boldly positions art at the center of our daily lives. 150 color illus. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

Bountiful food for thought here, elegantly phrased and finely illustrated.

The Seattle Times

When I read through Art as Therapy, paintings that I had long admired suddenly became new when seen through the filter of self awareness and exploration. Really a gem of a book.

Goop

A captivating, uncomplicated read that challenges how artists, dealers, and particularly, art museums do business, and anyone who cares about art should get a copy.

The Denver Post

When I read through Art as Therapy, paintings that I had long admired suddenly became new when seen through the filter of self awareness and exploration. Really a gem of a book.

goop

12/01/2013
. $39.95. FINE ARTSIn spite of its handsome design and rich illustrations, this title is not a conventional coffee-table art book. Rather than a monograph of a significant artist or overview of a stylistic movement, it is a survey of an expansive swath of Western art history, from the Renaissance to the present. Armstrong and de Botton, who founded the School of Life, a multinational organization dedicated to the dissemination of good ideas, make a polemical argument that art is, at its essence, a therapeutic tool offering viewers the opportunity for self-realization and transformation. The authors propose that we put aside such dry academic questions as historical context and instead ask how artworks can help us solve the most vexing questions in life: What is there to be proud of? What should we become? Some may be surprised by the sweeping and prescriptive nature of de Botton and Armstrong's conclusions. They claim, for instance, that the appreciation of beauty in good art allows us to recognize the unsightliness of much modern architecture and thus the need for aesthetic censorship. VERDICT While many scholars will dismiss this title as an ahistorical attempt to join the genres of art criticism and self-help, casual art museumgoers may find much to contemplate.—Jonathan Patkowski, CUNY Graduate Ctr.

Library Journal