A visitor looks at the paintings displayed at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam on June 5, 2021. (Credit: OLAF KRAAK / ANP / AFP via Getty Images)
Editor's Note:
Mari Rodríguez Ichaso has been a contributor to Vanidades magazine for several decades.
She is a specialist in fashion, travel, gastronomy, art, architecture and entertainment, film producer and style columnist for CNN en Español.
The opinions expressed in this column are solely his own.
Read more opinion pieces at cnne.com/opinion.
(CNN Spanish) -
I don't know if it happens to you, but as soon as I enter a museum I feel something very positive, almost “religious” —and I'm sure my blood pressure drops, my heart stops jumping and racing. thousand an hour - and my body relaxes and feels protected by their silence!
Because notice that in museums there are no screams, no noise, no horns, no horns, no people speaking loudly, not even the slightest screeching in the city ... Pure and respectful silence, and from time to time a whisper here and there.
And that is wonderful!
This leads me to tell you something very new in our lifestyle, and that I discovered recently in artnet.com magazine. And he refers to the fact that the World Health Organization (WHO) operates a fabulous program that studies and supports the role that the arts play in the well-being of human beings. Today's topic, as other international studies confirm the benefits of the arts in raising the spirit of patients in their homes and in hospitals. And that is why countless of these organizations have extensive music and art programs.
Looking back, I once accompanied my friend Plácido Domingo to Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York when he went to sing to hospitalized children, and it was a beautiful, truly unforgettable experience!
And something that for many years has been organized by associations, schools, hospitals and international museums, promoting these activities and visits to patients of all ages.
To patients with Alzheimer's, cancer, neurological problems, dementia, etc.
who benefit greatly from music, dance, writing, as well as the visual beauty and movement of the plastic arts.
And at least for me, Van Gogh's divine sunflowers — or Hockney's crystalline California pools — instantly take away my anxiety!
Mari Rodríguez Ichaso.
And since 2010, the American Journal of Public Health, of the National Institute of Health in the US, published a long study on "the connection between the arts and public health."
The same we find on the Internet at sites like the American Heart Association.
I remember when in 2019 an exhibition of Rembrandt was unveiled on the 350th anniversary of his death, in the great Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, and all the media covered the arrival of patients - many on stretchers! - who wanted to see it.
And the Dutch charity “Ambulance Wens” helped many terminally ill patients to enjoy Rembrandt once again!
This brings us to 2021, and the intense stress that we have all experienced for almost 2 years with the Covid-19 tragedy.
How to remove anxiety and regain harmony?
How to feel more serene and at peace?
What to do to be calmer?
Well, the possibility that visiting a museum could help us spend a few minutes of peace and tranquility — and help our mental health — is an excellent and very serious proposal.
And curiously, according to an article in Artnet, a group of doctors in Belgium have "ordered" their patients visits to museums as part of their treatment to cure anxiety and stress.
Love it!
And the funniest thing is that museums in Brussels - such as the one that keeps the many clothes (a gift from visitors from all over the world) of the famous statue of the naked boy peeing (the funny Manneken Pis) - are part of the recommended visits.
Visiting programs that already exist in community, arts and health organizations in a large number of countries.
If you like the idea why not take advantage of them?
Looking for what exists in your community or city?
Or do you organize them yourself?
It would be an absolutely great initiative!
Well, less to the work ... There are no excuses, don't you think?
ArtMuseums
