Do you like music and dance?
Perhaps you’re moved by a stimulating salsa rhythm, deeply touched by a stirring orchestral composition, or amazed by the beautiful choreography of a ballet performance.
Do graphic artworks catch your eyes?
Maybe you’re drawn to the passionate expressiveness of colors in a painting, the unusual combination of materials of a sculpture, or the majestic forms of ancient architecture.
Whoever you are, experiencing the arts is a highly personal matter. It speaks to you in ways words alone can’t and often evokes strong thoughts and emotions.
In fact, researchers say that appreciation for the arts can also make you a kinder person.
How?
The Effects the Arts Can Have on Your Emotions and Thinking
Research has actually found that valuing the arts can be a strong motivation for greater mental and emotional engagement with others. Moreover, it nurtures a willingness to volunteer for rendering social services and giving to charity.
How could art appreciation have such far-reaching effects?
Because a work of art can touch us deeply—rousing our emotions, stimulating critical thinking, sharpening our perceptions, and fostering kindness. It doesn’t just connect us with what’s inside of ourselves but also with what’s inside someone else.
Appreciation for the arts helps you discover yourself
Sometimes you may be puzzled why exactly a song or a painting evokes a strong emotion within you. What about it touched you? Unraveling that mystery can help you understand yourself more deeply.
As you explore the artwork, you may find that it helps relax you, that it makes you cry, or that it fills you with a deeply penetrating warmth. Discovering what exactly about it resonated with you can help you notice things about yourself that you wouldn’t have otherwise. Perhaps it connects you to a happy memory that you had pushed aside or it allows you to soothe a pain that you have battled with for far too long.
Either way, appreciation for the arts can help you resolve many difficult situations in your life. When a piece of art reflects what you feel, it can give you a stronger sense of who you are. As it allows you to see that you’re not alone in your struggle or suffering, you become more patient and compassionate with yourself. And when an artwork evokes joy and lifts your spirit, it can reduce stress and negative emotions, improve depression, and even aid you to conquer grief.
But it doesn’t stop there.
Appreciation for the arts teaches you empathy for others
Valuing the arts can also help you look beyond yourself and discover what belongs to someone else in a very profound way. While a piece of art may resonate with your emotions because of something you’ve experienced, it can help you understand the thoughts and emotions of the artist, too.
In fact, some artwork may resonate so strongly with you that you immediately identify with that person. It can so completely represent their life that you instantly relate to their experiences and suffering. There’s an instant connection! And that, in essence, is empathy. You don’t just understand where they come from, you feel it!
Once you become attuned to other’s feelings in that way, you tend to be able to put yourself in their shoes much easier. People around you suddenly are no longer just two-dimensional cardboard cutouts, they become three-dimensional individuals with histories, thoughts, and feelings much like your own. They are human beings you want to reach out to and help.
And that’s exactly why an appreciation for the arts can make you a better person. It can lead you to empathy and kindness. Which, in turn, supplies the inspiration and the motivation for you to want to get to know and assist your fellow man.
