research project idea

How does art fulfillpersonal and psychological needs? [2]

Exorcising emotions andevoking pleasurable responses n
Art also possesses the potential to contribute to the release of tensions and the resolution of conflicts. For the artist, creating art is a vehicle for making inner thoughts and feelings visible and, therefore, more objective, which can have a cathartic, tension releasing payoff. What may have been repressed can be expressed through socially approved channels. This is the basic rationale for art therapy: through participation in art activity, what has been suppressed can be given form and, thereby, exorcised.
For the consumer of art, perceiving the organization of sensuous qualities in works of art can evoke feelings of excitement, pleasure, and a sense of equilibrium and euphoria (the principal reasons for purchasing art and/or visiting art museums and galleries). Works of art often involve us in those peak experiences that differ so markedly from the outcomes of routine encounters. These types of experiences are so satisfying that many of us are willing to make significant expenditures in time, effort, and money to be enriched by art.
Another way of knowing
Making and/or experiencing art involves reacting imaginatively and idiosyncratically to symbols and implied metaphors. Moving from general experience to the creation of a particular work that expresses and distills individual responses is the way of art. For example, observing the almost religious fervor that late 20th- century industrial societies engage in consumerism and are infatuated with the popular culture and then creating an appropriate icon: a painting of a soup can that assumes the importance of a traditional portrait.

http://instructional1.calstatela.edu/laa/personal-psych_2.html