The Guardian view on art and health: the masterpiece can cure the body as well as the soul | Editorial

<p>From a Van Gogh self-portrait to Gauguin’s dreamscapes, new studies show that seeing original art can calm stress and boost health</p><p>In an era characterised by burnout and doomscrolling, a therapeutic alternative is hanging on a gallery wall. When volunteers at London’s Courtauld Gallery stood before <a href="https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/354596251/Physiological_Impact_of_viewing_original_artworks_vF_1_.pdf">Van Gogh’s Self-Portrait With Bandaged Ear, Manet’s Bar at the Folies-Bergère, and Gauguin’s Te Rerioa</a>, their stress and inflammation levels dropped compared with those of volunteers viewing reproductions. Science suggests that original art is a medicine that one can view rather than swallow.</p><p>That art can lift spirits is well known. But that it calms the body is novel. <a href="https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/the-positive-impact-of-art-on-the-body">A study by King’s College London</a> asked participants to look at masterworks by 19th-century post-impressionists – Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Manet and Gauguin – while strapped to sensors. Half the group saw the originals in&nbsp;the gallery, half viewed copies in a lab. The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/oct/28/picture-of-health-going-to-art-galleries-can-improve-wellbeing-study-reveals">results</a> were clear: going to art galleries is good for you – relieving stress and cutting heart disease risk, as well as&nbsp;boosting the immune system.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/nov/02/the-guardian-view-on-art-and-health-the-masterpiece-can-cure-the-body-as-well-as-the-soul">Continue reading...</a>