Engaging with art prolongs your life

(No. 142) Opera, music, art museums -- the form makes no difference

Joan of Arc by Jules Bastien-Lepage

A study in the British Journal of Medicine suggests that “engaging” with art can improve and lengthen an older person’s life. Certainly, the act of walking into an uncrowded museum (rare in New York City these days) can be a transportive experience. When I climb the tall marble staircase of the The Metropolitan Museum of Art and enter the second floor galleries of European Art, 1250 to 1800, I feel that I’ve entered an alternate dimension, where the past is present and the colors are new to my eye. The atmosphere calms me while, at the same time, it expands my consciousness. My favorite painting is Joan of Arc by Jules Bastien-Lepage (1879), which depicts the 19 year old peasant girl Joan in her garden receiving messages from saints who tell her to fight against the English in the Seven Years’ War. She will die there. I know little about the Seven Years’ War, but from spending time with this painting, I believe I understand what it’s like to communicate with departed saints. Such is the power of art to take me into another dimension.

And isn’t this one of the things we need and appreciate as we age? The ability to transport ourselves in our minds, when we want to. The sensation of quiet that joins contemplation in the echoey galleries. The appreciation of human talents and craftsmanship in a space we share with fellow humans. Even when I’m feeling lonely in a gallery at The Met, I feel connected to the other bees in the gallery hive.

The BMJ study looked at long-term data for nearly 7,000 English people. The researchers quantified how frequently the people were engaged with theater, concerts, opera and art exhibits. Those who engaged every few months or so with art were 31 percent less likely than non-engagers to die in the 14 year period they studied. That’s a big number, for sure. Ok, we have to remember (always) that correlation does not equal causation, but in this case it sure seems like it might. Health, age and income were all factored into the examination of the data, meaning it wasn’t just rich people with health insurance, or middle age wellness influencers, or any other type of people who benefited.

Museums are often expensive and hard to get to. The “refined” aura of snobbishness that imbues the art world with a sense of being “other” can repel inexperienced gallery visitors (although ageism is not as much of a factor in the West Chelsea Galleries, for instance, because these dealers of art assume that older people have more money to blow on the crafted wall trinkets they dangle). Yet there are many other ways to engage with art. Graffiti, for instance, is art. The patterns of leaves as they decay strike me as some of the greatest works of art. And every library is filled with wonderful books about art. So, if you’re unable to benefit from museums (or concerts and theater), explore other, more accessible, avenues. Work from the collections of most museums is available online.

One of the most engaging places to encounter art is a blog called thr3sholds, by an artist named Peonia Vázquez-D'Amico. When you visit thr3sholds, you enter Peonia’s own engagement with the art she spends time with. And that’s a magical place to be. Her writing is deep and beautiful. Peonia’s artwork is equally compelling, full of light and complexity. Engage today and live until tomorrow.