Why Everyone Must Study Art

9 year old Adrian had not a worry in the world. He was a loving child and a good student. But all of a sudden, it all started going downhill. His grades at school began to fall and he started exhibiting signs of depression. His loving parents tried every approach in the book, but nothing seemed to work. Unsuccessful and disheartened, it was only by chance that they gave him some paints and colors on his 11th birthday. Initially, Adrian started with just the pencils. Gradually, his unhappy thoughts began taking shape on paper. On some days, the drawings were melancholy and agitated, but on others, the drawings appeared joyful and bursting with energy. Slowly and steadily, art helped Adrian fight depression.

Your child, teen or adult, may or may not exhibit signs of depression or unhappiness, but art will help them grow in the most significant way. Art assumes different forms such as painting, music, drama, dance, sculpting, carving, and designing. Whatever you child chooses, he or she will learn to love art. Art is soothing not just for kids, but for adults as well.

Here are a few ways in which art helps both children and adults:

Creative Boost
Children usually love to play with colors. Colors signify happiness not only for children, but for adults too. The confident and powerful brush strokes, the burst of rhythm into dance, the embrace of wet clay and stone, the mellifluous tones of the piano, all lend a hand in boosting creativity. This surge in creativity helps you get creative in other phases of your life as well. Creativity enhances your professional, academic and personal life. Art is your creative pill.

Escape for Emotions
Have you ever felt your dreams crashing down? Ever felt this terrible wave of emotions building up inside you, which may then be unleashed on your loved ones? If you have ever felt the need to find a healthy medium to express the powerful emotions surging inside you, you must consider taking up some form of art.

Helps You Learn a Little More About ‘YOU’
Art helps you identify the real ‘YOU’. Taking up an artistic hobby allows you to explore different facets of your psyche. Most importantly, you get to experience the gratification and pride derived from developing something original and prodigious.

Therapy for Stress
Artistic indulgences such as dance, drama, and music often involve interactions in a group. Working together to successfully transform ideas to art output is a manifestation of great team spirit and community involvement. Often, sharing your experiences with others through art can serve as a stress reliever. Creating art is sometimes so intense and joyfully consuming, that it helps you leave behind the stress of daily life.

Art Can Help You Live A Gutsy and Colorful Life
Routine existence does not leave you with much room to explore your wild imaginations and express all the thoughts in your head. The best way to challenge and hone your creativity is to be gutsy and confidently unique in your art. It enables and cultivates boldness and spontaneity which will spill over to other parts of your life as well.

Critique and Question
Works of some of the world’s most famous painters allow art lovers several innovative interpretations of their work. These creations compel you, as an art aficionado, to critique the work, understand and interpret the painter’s emotions, develop a story or version of your own, and question and admire what is being depicted.

Critiquing art enables you to become more analytical and enhances your critical thinking skills. When you question existing facts, you also try to find an alternate explanation. Art gets you to think deeply. It helps you find multiple ways of doing the same thing. For children, art is an invaluable tool to develop their mind.

Helps you discover new planes of existence
It’s been proven time and again that art helps you face the unknown, discover the yet undiscovered, and conquer the yet unconquered. You become more resilient and think beyond the obvious. You could even say that you get a spiritual, mental, and physical boost. You begin thinking ‘avant-garde’.

What mathematics and physics cannot do, art can do for you and your child. Every child relates to art in some form or the other. Art is freedom of thought. It’s best to let the child interpret art his or her own way.

Used constructively, art can help a child blossom and grow

About the Author

Article written and published by Sun Maag. Visit Rocky Mountain School of Art and Design for online art education degree.