Alain de Botton on Art Is Therapy in the Rijksmuseum

On 25 April 2014, Alain de Botton held a presentation on the Rijksmuseum exhibition Art Is Therapy.

[@tubeyou89119]

Listening to Alain is a therapy.

[@Idlinfarm]

Brilliant, good humor and wonderful intelligence. Thanks.

[@kgskaug]

A splendid talk and an even more impressive exhibition! This exhibition should do a world tour!!!

[@DHasirci1975]

I love the idea, the book, and the talk... Thank you for giving me new questions to think about, Alain!

[@svenhamper842]

Art creates a portal into our very souls. It enables us to connect with a universal consciousness and in that process becomes part of our ongoing cultural evolution. That's why great art - just like Shakespeare's works - will continue to enrich and holistically impact on successive generations of people. Art asks probing questions of us and we in turn try to answer these. The answers we provide in turn lead to further questions and thus the process continues to reverberate eternally.

[@bonistyles8048]

Excellent job Alain. Hope for us all. I want to go to a museum now.

[@fatimamajed3533]

Wonderful ideas...thank you very much 🙏🌲

[@sedeslav]

In Japan when you broke a clay pot you can send it to a special store where skillful restaurators gluing broken parts together with solid gold! After restauration you get back more beautiful and more valuable item then it ever be before. Technic is call Kintsugi)

[@maggz654]

Massively inspirational...I've shared the link as an indicative resource for 'my' students groups.

[@racicotceline]

Profonde réflexion sur l'effet de l'art dans notre vie.

[@pittmartliam9166]

Céline Racicot

[@miroslavasreckovic4123]

Thanks for sharing.

[@lionsteve29]

Some very valid truths here which many hide away from seeing

[@JF-cf4pw]

Excellent - and a great 'exhibition' too!

[@vasantham9274]

think from art perspective to understand art's world

[@sebastianmelmoth685]

Very simplistic.

[@hctthermitcrabtranscriptio1319]

Should have he said "Museums are our new cathedrals"?

[@sal.mallen]

Yes, he should had said that. It was clearly a lapsus.

[@deenaeckel]

Cathedrals are also in a way becoming museums. They aren’t serving the same purposes as they once were. They are historic architectural works of art.

[@VeronikaBan]

Great !

[@jamieholmes5443]

What a mate.

[@artboy2]

I think the real reason so many art museum professionals find his theories objectionable is because if we really tried to present art as therapy and connect to our lives in terms of hope, love, and all the rest, it would be glaringly obvious that film and television do that so much better and, thus, the final nail in the coffin of obsolete-ness.

[@nancymohass4891]

In fact the Talk is about paintings , part of Art , not all !

[@oatscurry]

It’s not just about paintings. He’s just using some paintings as an example. Rijks only really has paintings, pottery, armor and weaponry, furniture, and a few sculptures. Alain is making an argument about the didactic nature of art that encapsulates propagandistic properties. Certain paintings from this museum just happen to be apposite to reenforcing his position.

[@vasantham9274]

liberate art

[@MarkHeng3000]

www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/apr/25/art-is-therapy-alain-de-botton-rijksmuseum-amsterdam-review Discuss

[@melanietruth]

oh, so POSH - I'll take a plane over to London and we'll chat about it. I'm going to put that on a post it note and stick it on my paintbrush.

[@NickOrloffski]

Alain doesn't like kitsch art!!!??? Pffffft.