Artworks generally serve their purpose on being displayed or decorated in museums and exhibitions. However, they have another purpose to ‘move’ our minds. Appreciation of artworks means watching pictures or sculptures. Watching means directly unde...
Artworks generally serve their purpose on being displayed or decorated in museums and exhibitions. However, they have another purpose to ‘move’ our minds. Appreciation of artworks means watching pictures or sculptures. Watching means directly understanding. Appreciation of famous paintings is an act an appreciator with an interest reading the characteristics, periodical backgrounds, flows, and emotions of the famous painting, and various sides expressed in the picture is perceived and understood at appreciators’ ages, experiences and standards.
Especially, since famous paintings are an expression of human experiences with various sides, by understanding them, people become understandable and respectful of the world and others as well as looking back themselves that allows them to experience things which they could not understand and to possess an attitude to accept a new point of view. By understanding and appreciating famous paintings, the appreciator accepts the artist’s message, internalizes it, and when it reflects on expression activities, it serves as a motive for art expression. Receiving and appreciating pictures can be applied for healing purposes by utilizing this point of view of appreciation of famous paintings the most; it is the receptive point of view of the art therapy.
The receptive point of view of the art therapy is that patients appreciate famous paintings, experience the inner recreation process, and once they relax both psychologically and mentally, they receive calmness and peace of mind as well as a new energy. (Jung, Yu Joo, 2003)
Once appreciation of famous paintings goes through the internalization process and experiences the eruption and purification of emotion into art expressions, it can complement the effect of the art therapy that can relax both emotional conflict and psychological symptoms by increasing the effectiveness of healing.
Depression in adolescence of teenagers who are mentally immature and still in development process can lead to a more serious emotional disturbance than adults. In extreme cases, it can cause teenagers to give up their academics as a result of concentrated difficulty and loss of interest, and to stay contracted or loose motivations in overall social activities. Psychological treatments are useful in treating depression symptoms effectively. By applying the receptive art therapy through appreciation of famous paintings to youth with depression, their ego-identity will be recovered and the motive of art expression can be planted on them. Furthermore, we can expect eruption of emotions and spontaneity by internally being conscious of the surroundings and themselves through appreciation of famous paintings,
For these reasons, this study will look into how the receptive art therapy through appreciation of famous paintings displays on art expressions of young adults with the propensity of depression, and furthermore, how their propensity of depression changes.
The subject for this study is a sixteen-years-old female with a strong propensity of depression who was not adapting to school activities and peer relationship as a result of her former bully and assault experiences in elementary school by her peers and was showing a psychological insecurity and contraction due to her low self-esteem and powerlessness.
The study was conducted from April, 2008 to August, 2008 once every week for fifty minutes for each with the total of twenty-five art therapy program sessions and was observed and recorded under her patients’ agreement. Each session was analyzed through photographing of art pieces and any changes made were received from her mother on the phone. The art therapy was conducted in connection with her counselor in the school followed by a counseling session. The main question was formulated as it follows.
What changes has the art therapy program made on the art expressions of a young adult with the propensity of depression and the propensity itself?
These are the results based on the case study.
First, in the case of changes in art expressions, the young adult’s empathy and the process of eruption of suppressed emotions were dynamically described on her art expressions, and she was absorbed in art works and became interested in materials, forms, colors and backgrounds of artworks.
She began with using simple drawing utensils and moved onto different materials. Her expression of people and matters expanded. She used bright colors many times and concentrated on her art works. The range of her artistic activities expanded as well, and she became positive on expression. She recovered her sense of self-respect followed by expression of positive identity that was the leading expression, and she started drawing pictures with harmonious and hopeful topic in overall.
Second, the subject could share the common interest on appreciation of famous paintings and formed a sense of intimacy, her sense of powerlessness and low self-esteem were about to face her problems with depressions and uneasiness objectively through empathy, and was able to voluntarily create art works feeling interested in and desire on art expression.
She was showing her interest in interpersonal relations once her eye was educated to see the world different through art appreciation. Furthermore, she learned to express her opinion in contrast to her uneasy, negative and powerless image, showed her will for school activities and recovered her sentimental stability.