1. Remembering
“Art helps us accomplish a task that is of central importance in our lives: to hold onto things we love when they are gone.” Art can commemorate significant details and help preserve fleeting experiences.
2. Hope
When the world looks grim, filled with problems and injustices that seem insurmountable, art can provide hope. Art can give us the idealized representation of what we long for.
3. Sorrow
Art can teach us how to suffer more successfully. Your every day sorrow is transformed by art into something noble.
4. Rebalancing
The ability of art to help us rebalance emotionally explains why people differ so much in their aesthetic tastes. “We hunger for artworks that will compensate for our inner fragilities” thus providing us with a sense of inner wholeness. Our weaknesses are diverse but balanced by our choices in art.
5. Self-Understanding
Art has the ability to help us understand ourselves and then to communicate who we are to others. The objects of art that we choose to surround ourselves with are our subtle, non-verbal way of telling others about our character.
6. Growth
“Growth occurs when we discover how to remain authentically ourselves in the presence of potentially threatening things.” Art that you find alien and off-putting presents you with an opportunity to find points of connection, however fragile. This discovery expands your sense of self and fosters growth.
7. Appreciation
Art helps us to stop, look and really see what is in front of us. Art lets us look at things with new eyes and see what we have been missing. With this clearer vision we can appreciate the value of ordinary life.