49CHAPTER 3
History
Art therapy is not a modern invention.
“If men of worth did know what delight [art] breedeth,” wrote Nicholas Hilliard,
Court painter to Queen Elizabeth I, “how it removeth melancholy, avoideth evil occa-
sions, putteth passions of grief or sorrow away, cureth rage and shorteneth the times,
they would never leave until they had attained in some good measure or more their
comfort.”
Writing more than 300 years later, Jung made much the same observation: “A patient
needs only to have seen once or twice how much he is freed from a wretched state of
mind by working at a symbolical picture, and he will always turn to this means of release
whenever things go badly with him.”
Anthony Stevens, 1986, p. 122The Sources of Art Therapy
Natural Beauty is Soothing
I believe that the bedrock, the underground source of healing through beauty—whether
taking it in or creating it—is not only art, but the natural world from which it springs.
Many have found in nature’s eternal wonder an echo of something deep in the human soul,
whether in the rhythm of the waves, the rustling of the leaves, or the howl of the storm. I
have often soothed myself, when too troubled or tired to create, by searching for a peaceful
spot where I can drink in the delicate shape and shifting tones of a wildflower, the linear
tracery patterns of trees silhouetted against the sky, or the majesty of a brilliantly hued sun-
set, as on the DVD (3.1).
The power of the aesthetic, the beautiful, to quiet and to calm, to contain even ugly pas-
sions, is so profound as to be incalculable. Why else would we derive such joy from natural
beauty or such pleasure from the arts? It seems that the nonverbal forms we treasure are so
very valuable because they mirror, echo, and express the ineffable, unspeakable feelings we
all carry within, from birth until death. And when we touch and shape materials in making
art, we experience our impact on the world; indeed, we feel our very existence.