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hubie [soylentnews.org] writes:

Online art viewing is an untapped source of support for well-being [aesthetics.mpg.de]:

Art can have a positive effect on our mood. But does this also work when we look at paintings on a screen? An international research team involving the University of Vienna, the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen and the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics (MPIEA) in Frankfurt am Main decided to investigate this question. The study was funded by the EU Horizon ART*IS Project [artis-h2020.eu]. The results have now been published as an open access article in the journal Computers in Human Behavior [sciencedirect.com].

240 study participants viewed an interactive Monet Water Lily art exhibition from Google Arts and Culture. By filling out a questionnaire, they provided information about their state of mind, how much pleasure they felt when looking at the pictures, and how meaningful they considered the experience to be. The results showed significant improvements in mood and anxiety after just a few minutes of viewing.

The study also found that some participants were more receptive to art than others and were able to benefit more. This advantage could be predicted using a metric called "aesthetic responsiveness."

Journal Reference:
Trupp et al., Who benefits from online art viewing, and how: The role of pleasure, meaningfulness, and trait aesthetic responsiveness in computer-based art interventions for well-being [open], Computers in Human Behavior, 145, 2023. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2023.107764 [doi.org]

Original Submission