Review: Art as Therapy

Art as Therapy by Alain de Botton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Alain de Botton is such an interesting writer. When I am reading his writing, I feel very calm, like everything will be okay and there is nothing to worry about. It is very lulling. I really enjoyed this book. The artworks which he prints in this book are in colour unlike in 'therapeutic journey', where they are in black and white! I found this an annoying point about 'therapeutic journey'. I love art and going to galleries, as well as therapy (lol) and so it was really interesting how Botton incorporated the two. I was interested for a while in studying Art Therapy as a Masters programme, and it never really occurred to me that the therapy can be simply in the viewing rather than the creating of art. I thought the way he hinted at how museums can be rearranged was very interesting, having different kind of 'mood rooms', and moving through the museum like moving through the mind. The way he examined the art pieces as well was beautiful. Sometimes I would turn the page and think... 'what the hell is he going to manage to say about *that*?!" but he so obviously carefully selected which pieces he would write about because his analyses were all so well considered. I loved the different range of art he chose too. I went to go and see one of the artworks that he wrote about because I loved it so much after he talked about it.

View all my reviews