Art Makes Us Happier and Healthier, New Study Says

New Study: Art Museums As Institutions for Human Flourishing

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have found that visiting a museum is good for your health. The study, titled Art Museums As Institutions for Human Flourishing was published in the Journal of Positive Psychology.

The researchers found that visiting a museum reduces stress levels, lowers blood pressure, decreases the intensity of chronic pain and improves the symptoms of depression. Even more fascinating is the discovery that people with dementia experienced mental and physical benefits from museum visits, like higher cognitive function and a decrease in symptoms of depression. A museum visit can even lessen the likelihood of being diagnosed with dementia and even increase a person’s life span.

We hope visitors to Surovek Gallery get the same positive effects when they come here. Here’s a look at some of the most serene works of art in our gallery:

Anthony Thieme: Vermont Autumn Glory

Anthony Thieme (1888-1954) was born in Holland, traveled extensively and settled in Rockport, Massachusetts in 1929. He painted landscapes and seascapes, both in the Northeast and in St. Augustine, where he had a studio.

Thieme was able to capture the beauty and serenity of the landscapes.

Wolf Kahn: A Slight Curve in the Meadow’s Edge

Wolf Kahn (1927-2020) and Anthony Thieme both painted Vermont landscapes. Thieme’s realistic style incorporated the inimitable colors that he saw. Kahn used color to express what he saw in the landscape.

Kahn and his wife, artist Emily Mason, spent summers in Vermont. The couple became integral members of the art community in Brattleboro. Though he enjoyed the Vermont landscape, Kahn said that he felt a sense of serenity in his Manhattan studio. “The environment in which my paintings grow best is at Broadway and 12th Street.” he said. “I can see nature most clearly in my studio, undistracted by trees and skies. Art being emotion recollected in tranquility, I constantly find Nature too emotional, and Broadway very tranquil.”

Milton Avery: Man and Sea

Milton Avery (1885-1965) used color and form to create a sense of serenity in his landscapes, seascapes and figurative works. He often painted his family and the young artists who visited his Manhattan apartment.

Avery didn’t get as much attention as his younger counterparts, at a time when Abstract Expressionism was the commanding style of the time.

Avery was a mentor to many young artists, including Mark Rothko, who said, “What was Avery’s repertoire? His living room, Central Park, his wife Sally, his daughter March, the beaches and mountains where they summered; cows, fish heads, the flight of birds; his friends and whatever world strayed through his studio: a domestic, unheroic cast. But from these there have been fashioned great canvases, that far from the casual and transitory implications of the subjects, have always a gripping lyricism, and often achieve the permanence and monumentality of Egypt.”

Avery’s work has been garnering much attention recently. One of his works sold for $6 million at Sotheby’s last month. Another sold at Art Basel this month for $2 million.

Stephen Scott Young: The Pantry

Stephen Scott Young (1957- ) isolates moments that he shares with the viewers of his works. Young is one of America’s most outstanding watercolorists. He is best known for his intimate portraits of children in the Bahamas, intimate street scenes and seascapes.

Norman Lewis: Untitled

Norman Lewis (1909-1979) began his career as a figurative artist. He began to do abstract paintings in the 1940s and was able to create works that expressed his moods and feelings. His works are part of the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian, the Met, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Blanton Museum of Art, the High Museum of Art and many others.

Artists take us into their worlds. Those worlds are not always serene, but they are always interesting and make us think. And, apparently, that is good for our physical and mental health.

Please contact us if you would like more information about the work of Anthony Thieme, Wolf Khan, Milton Avery, Stephen Scott Young, Norman Lewis or any of the other fine artists whose works are available at Surovek Gallery.