top of page
Writer's pictureDoaa Mohamed

Exploring the Canvas of the Mind: The Intricate Connection Between Art and Psychology

Updated: Oct 12

Art comes from souls as a meditation to take you into deep sensation to explore something new or depict feelings that influence others.

Artists use their brushes and drawings to express their feelings and deliver a specific meaning to share their thoughts.

Within the shadow of colors, you can see a smile, or tear, or catch a brilliant idea that may reshape a part of your personality and beliefs.


Artists leave an open door to build a mental bridge between their minds and your mind to communicate their ideas and feelings and make you live in the same state.


The Intricate Connection Between Art and Psychology


Oil Painting on Canvas
Oil Painting on Canvas


Art and psychology are bounded across all years

I think that few people know the relationship between art and psychology and the influence of each other to nourish the other.

Understanding human minds, emotions, behaviors, and psychology was a perfect way that helped artists design artworks that arise feelings to build connections with people. Because the easiest way to communicate with people is emotionally way.


Do you wonder why people like to have themselves painted in an amazing portrait?

Why are you captured in a specific painting rather than others?

All of us love the artwork and we regard our love to the aesthetic aspect.

But we are attracted to art due to internal psychological bonds.


How does psychology influence art?

The psychology of everyone is different because our brains are not the same, they receive and interpret art in different ways. There are no two people who can see a piece of art as the same. Everyone interprets art depending on his perception and his way of thinking.


Certainly, any piece of art gives a specific meaning, but the way you receive and think about it is mentally different. Understanding the psychology of art means understanding the perception, cognition, and characteristics of art. So, art and psychology are closely related.

Sigmund Freud’s desk at the Freud museum in London
Sigmund Freud’s desk at the Freud museum in London


What is the impact of art on psychology?

Art is used in psychological therapy in some cases to enable people to describe their feelings and thoughts, especially those who cannot communicate easily with others. It helps people improve their cognitive and sensory functions and improves memory for patients suffering from Dementia.

Art boosts our moods through the stimulation of specific neurotransmitters like dopamine which is called a pleasure-related neurotransmitter and is responsible for improving our mood.

Besides, many psychological theories suppose that there is a relationship between aesthetic experience and pleasure.


I believe that eyes are nothing when the mind is blind. Thus, Arts build a connection between your brain and what you see. When you see a piece of art your brain works on that image and then gives signals to stimulate your sensory functions and arise feelings toward this artwork.


History has a lot of artists who are influenced by psychology and inspired by psychologists to design emotionally catchy art.

The most famous psychoanalyst in history is Sigmund Freud, his theories have an unforgettable mark on art history.

His journey with art began with criticizing art and ended with being an influencer in the greatest art movement in the 20th Century which is known as Surrealism.



Sigmund's Role in art!

Freud was an Australian neurologist and writer. He was known as the founding father of psychoanalysis which is a method for the treatment of mental illness through understanding human behaviors. His theories and ideas focused on the subconscious mind.


Freud believed that the psychology of humans is composed of conscious, preconscious, and unconscious. He thought that the unconscious mind is the mirror of childhood memories and conflicts that influence our behaviors and personality.

He was fascinated by art and during his lifetime he studied the lives and personalities of many artists to understand.

What do they feel?

How do they describe their feelings?

Why do they describe a specific feeling at a certain time?

Because art has many purposes, not for aesthetic objectives only.

Every artist who starts drawing has something to say or a feeling to convey. For that, he analyzed their personalities and composed theories to inspire them more.


Moreover, Freud was very brilliant and used to write analytical art assays for any artwork by linking the lives of artists with their artworks. That is why now, you can guess the character of an artist once you figure out the meaning of a piece of art.


Freud's passion for art expanded to being an art collector. He collected almost 2500 antiquities from ancient civilizations around the world. These antiquities were displayed in his home in London which was converted into Freud Museum.


His ideas about the unconscious mind and the power of dreams had a significant impact on the development of surrealistic art.


Surrealism is an art movement that began in the early 20th Century and differs in its origin because it comes from the subconscious mind. That mind provides us with multiple different ideas. The power of the subconscious mind comes from its ability to store everything you are exposed to throughout your day.

From that point, surrealists believe that the subconscious mind is the source of creativity and innovation. Besides, the ideas that come subconsciously are superior to that of the realistic mind.


Galatea of the spheres by Salvador Dali, 1952
Galatea of the spheres by Salvador Dali, 1952


Some artists get inspired by their dreams and nightmares to evoke a Freudian world and create alternative strange life shaped by thoughts that come from dreams and introduce them as reality.

Freudian theories have a particular impact on the surrealistic movement and his iconic text "The Interpretation of Dreams” was very influential to many surrealists to connect with their dreams that reveal much about our desires.

Like Max Ernst, Salvador Dali, and Joan Mario.


In conclusion, art and psychology are intertwined in many ways and this connection can be a rich and valuable aspect of mental health and art expression.


34 views0 comments

Comments


STAY IN THE KNOW

Thanks for submitting!

bottom of page