Benefits of Virtual Art

Trupp and colleagues have learned that seeing art virtually shares benefits with seeing it “live”: “Brief online art viewing can significantly reduce negative mood and anxiety. . . . we used a Monet interactive art exhibition from Google Arts and Culture to deepen our understanding of the role of pleasure, meaning, and individual differences in the responsiveness to art. . . . This paper provides evidence for the potential of online art interventions—viewing one artwork for a short (1–2 min) period on one’s personal internet-enabled device—to have a detectible positive effect on well-being (negative mood, anxiety). . . . We found that there was a possible detrimental effect of viewing art on a smartphone compared to a laptop or desktop computer and that this impact was predicted by lower levels of liking (with potential moderation of the relationship between liking and changes in positive mood by device type).”

MacKenzie Trupp, Giacomo Bignardi, Eva Specker, Edward Vessle, and Matthew Pelowski.  2023. “Who Benefits from Online Art Viewing, and How:  The Role of Pleasure, Meaningfulness, and Trait Aesthetic Responsiveness in Computer-Based Art Interventions for Well-Being.”  Computers in Human Behavior, vol. 145, 107764, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2023.107764