Could our mental health benefit from a creative cure?

People in the creative industries are more likely to suffer from mental health issues, but getting creative can help. Christine Manby visits the National Gallery to let the art work its magic

(Tom Ford)

Imagine visiting your doctor and leaving the appointment with a prescription not for tablets but for an afternoon of watercolour painting. The concept of “Art on prescription” began in the UK in the 1990s and is still going strong, with many regional organisations offering painting, writing and singing workshops which have had proven positive results on the mental health of participants.

Alas, as with so many things pertaining to mental health, it isn’t always easy to access these courses when you feel most in need of them. However, there’s much to suggest that you don’t have to be the one wielding the paintbrush to benefit from great art and in the UK we have a wealth of places where we can experience the very best on a daily basis and often for free.

Catherine Boardman is convinced of the restorative power of simply being in the presence of wonderful art and design. When Boardman left her career as a BBC news producer to raise her twin sons, she soon found herself feeling lost without the daily mental stimulation of the newsroom. Noticing this, her husband suggested that she set aside one day a week to do something cultural that would help her to reconnect with her pre-motherhood passions.

In doing so, he unwittingly gave her the inspiration to start an award-winning blog. Boardman chose Wednesdays as her regular day for heading out on explorations, “So ‘Cultural Wednesdays’ began.” She describes how her new adventures revitalised her sense of self. “Once I started going out and seeing stuff my mood lifted. Other people heard that I went and saw things and asked to come along. Seeing beautiful things makes you smile.”

Boardman’s favourite London museum is the Victoria and Albert, where the permanent collections can be seen for free (though donations are always accepted). “The V&A is a treasure trove on my solitary wanderings. I have found Leonardo da Vinci’s notebook, a whole gilded music room, the Great Bed of Ware. Take a turn round the Cast Courts and discover the world’s ancient architectural treasures cast life-size for your enjoyment.”

She also loves the Wallace Collection. “When I lived round the corner in a tiny attic studio flat I used to bring a book and sit in the Wallace Collection. It feels like a rather grand house. The Laughing Cavalier became my friend. I would glance up from my book and he would be there chortling.” She recommends the Royal Festival Hall as another great place to “just be”, citing its “excellent carpet”.

Boardman now blogs every Wednesday, bringing her readers cultural treats and family travel ideas from all over the UK and further afield. Away from London, she particularly loves Henry Moore’s Reclining Figure at Snape Maltings in Suffolk. “The figure gazes out across seemingly endless reedbeds. This is the landscape of my childhood, I love Moore’s sinuous forms. Just thinking of the sculpture and the place makes me calm.” She also makes regular pilgrimages to the National Trust’s Cragside in Northumberland. The Arts and Crafts house, designed by industrial magnate William Armstrong, the first Baron Armstrong, was the first house in the world to be lit with hydroelectricity.

Art can work its magic on us in many ways. It seems obvious that looking at a beautiful painting or standing in an elegantly designed room should lift the viewer’s mood, but even more challenging works can have a positive effect.

Van Gogh used art as a means of working through his own mental health problems

On World Mental Health Day back in October, the National Gallery launched its first mental health-awareness audio tour. The tour, co-created by researchers from King’s College London, the McPin Foundation and the Gallery’s Young Producers programme, together with a panel of young people, including some affected by mental health issues, hopes to dispel some of the myths surrounding mental health by using some of the gallery’s most famous paintings as a starting point for discussion.

Upon its inauguration, Dr Helen Fisher, from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King’s, described how she hoped the tour would encourage people to feel more comfortable with talking about how they feel. The tour can be downloaded for free. You don’t even have to be in the gallery to benefit. The artworks discussed are all available to view online.

The tour begins with the paintings in the gallery’s Sainsbury Wing, where we’re invited to consider how mental health issues are as old as humanity, while looking at sumptuous gold, medieval altarpieces. Standing in front of two paintings of the Madonna and Child by Venetian renaissance artist Giovanni Battista Cima da Conegliano (known as Cima), the listener is encouraged to consider the subtle differences between the pictures – though they are by the same artist and of the same subject – while listening to a young woman explain how she thought she couldn’t possibly have depression because her symptoms weren’t the same as those of a friend who had received an official diagnosis. The lesson here is that everyone’s experience of mental health is unique.

Further along, it was striking to regard the paintings in a room full of landscapes while listening to two very different pieces of music. The first piece, in a minor key, really did seem to render the paintings wintry and melancholy, while the second, which was jollier in tone, seemed to bathe the exact same paintings in a different light. It was a very simple but effective demonstration as to how the environment in which we live might shape our vulnerability to mental illness.

In the Impressionists’ gallery, the paintings of Vincent van Gogh provide the focus for a discussion of the myth of the tortured artist. The idea that mental health issues are a prerequisite for artistic genius can be particularly damaging as it discourages people from seeking help by normalising those issues as part of the creative life. The National Gallery tour points out that creative workers are actually three times more likely to suffer from mental health issues for a variety of reasons that have nothing much to do with their art. Creative work can be precarious and badly paid. Creative workplaces have been among those in the spotlight for #MeToo. Artists often conflate their self-worth with the perceived value of the work they produce.

Yet, while pursuing art as a career has its challenges, the National Gallery tour reminds us that making art for art’s sake is always a positive thing. Van Gogh used art as a means of working through his own mental health issues and created some of his most important work in the process. His legacy is an archive of paintings that will offer comfort, consolation and a jumping-off point for important conversations for years to come.

The National Gallery’s Mental Health Awareness Audio Tour will be available for free until April 2020