I recently found an uplifting and interesting tidbit for those of us who enjoy painting landscapes. According to Dr. John Diamond, in his 1979 book Your Body Doesn’t Lie, when a person looks at a landscape painting it will raise their level of well being, balance their right and left brain hemispheres and increase their life energy. The book describes Dr. Diamond’s research and practice for Behavioral Kinesiology (BK), which uses muscle testing from Kinesiology to test for factors in the environment that raise and lower a person’s energy or life force. He muscle tested patients for music, electronic devices, picture symbols, food, just about everything, as well as paintings. He found that a photograph of a landscape or an actual view of a landscape did not come close to the life giving qualities from a landscape painting (!)
Here is a quote (p. 76 in Dr. Diamond’s book) “…The results are not nearly so satisfactory with line drawings or with photographs. Looking at a beautiful scene in nature may or may not be as effective, depending on the ability of the viewer to abstract certain qualities from it, which is, after all, what a good painter has already done for us. I have found that if people take an “energy break” every so often – just to recite a verse or two of poetry or to look at a picture postcard of a painting, stress and tension will be considerably reduced……and the Life Energy will be high…”
How cool is that?
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Wow! I was so amazed by your article. I learned something from it. Thanks!
I love paintings but I don't know how to paint honestly. I have collections of them and most of them are landscape paintings. I would love to go on a workshop someday so I can finally make my own collection.
All the best!
I found your article today in searching for something else. I've enjoyed your work and your book, so this was an additional treat. I'd like to post a link to this article on my landscape paintings page, if you approve.
An oncology clinic for women bought a group of my flower paintings because the colors and subject gave encouragement and hope to their patients. It's nice to know someone has studied this phenomenon. Gives us artists encouragement, too.
Your site is a great place to visit
Your work is waonderful, many thanks for sharing.
Nancy,
A local doctor ( whose wife is the Art Historian at the university where I teach) requested I hang some of my landscape paintings at his offices, citing the theory that recovery time for patients who are surounded by “pictures of nature”, as he put it, is up to half that of most patients.
I’ll be forwarding your article to him for sure.
Thanks!
Ron, I really enjoyed visiting your website. Please feel free to post a link to this article.
Thanks!
This is a great article. I found you from your book – just bought it at Borders. I wanted to post a link to this article from my blog if that is ok (www.creativitybuilders.com)?
Love your work. I also love reading blogs where one get’s to learn little useful tidbits of information!