How Claude Monet’s painting “Water Lilies” affects people and why they cry while contemplating it is a question to which Dr Ayla Lepine of the National Gallery in London has been trying to find an answer.
“I know people who come here when they are about to make a big decision in life and need time, peace and connection with their own selves. This painting inspires people to connect with an aspect of themselves that they reach in the presence of the beauty and sensitivity it exudes. They are able to feel a deeper and truer connection with their bodies, with their minds, with their hearts, and for some of them, even with divine transcendence.”
Claude Monet is the artist who captures and recreates the perfection in the dance of light. Painted in a time of war and emotions of human suffering, Monet’s artwork manages to convey the love, hope and beauty that people so much need. The main feeling embodied in the painting is the search for PEACE. Peace in the world and in people’s souls.
“Peace doesn’t mean everything is perfect. Rather, peace means you are able to find your breath, to stay connected to life in the face of gritty realism.” Wendy Beckett
Monet’s stunning water lilies symbolize hope, new beginnings and longing for new life.
This is the power of art therapy.
Art opens up the possibility of expressing a deep inner world that could not find otherwise its manifestation solely and only through words.
Its magic takes us into a different dimension, which has no boundaries and limitations. A space of lightness and freedom is revealed in the expression of deep, intimate and carefully concealed feelings and emotions of the soul.
The healing power of art happens in a phenomenological way, through a process that arises spontaneously and each step taken suggests the next.
The creative process provokes our imagination and takes us down a path of self-exploration and self-discovery, to places within ourselves where we have not dared to look. Art also reveals to us the pathway of personal transformation by giving life and actualizing inner pictures that, once seen, carry healing energy and potential for change.
Art therapy is an opportunity for anyone who is searching for the way to inner peace and balance, and who would like to explore this path in a creative and liberating way.
Art is the way through which each person creatively evokes a field of insight in which the magic of transformation and healing takes place.