Art Triggers Mood and Emotions

I have always been interested in art ever since I was young. The thought of having drawn a picture, which then triggers a response from an audience, is fun. Art triggers moods and emotions. While reading David Small's Stitches: A Memoir I immediately got hooked by his art style. Instead of using words, Small published a memoir in a form of a graphic novel. In my analytical essay about Stitches, I mentioned how he used artwork to express a certain mood and emotion in each of the panels, as well as evoke a certain mood or emotion among the readers. Because I already started on how art affects mood and emotions, I am going to expand my claim on art's effect on mood and emotion for my research paper.

Now my topic is a little broad: the effects of art on psychology. The purpose is to show how art can affect audience's emotions and moods based on what they see. In my analytical essay on Stitches, I mentioned how Small's use of shadow, light and facial expression shows mood and affect the mood of the audience. Rather than focusing on specific use of media, I'm going to focus my research on how art in general affect a person.

 While doing my research, I had a bit of trouble finding the right keywords to use as my search terms. After thinking long and hard about my topic, I finally thought of keywords that would fit my research. I mixed and matched the terms art, mood, emotion, psychology, audience, and perception. The words that worked well when paired together were art, mood, emotion, and psychology. The word audience did work, but not as well as the others. After a few hours of researching using Academic Search Complete, I have found articles that may be helpful to my research.

Of course, I had to choose the articles carefully. Fortunately, the ones I picked talked about art and mood one way or another. Most of them support my claim. For example, Hazel Hanson, et al. research about how patients in a hospital respond to art depending on their situation. One patient commented that he or she "perceive[s] the need to get through the obstacle of the disease and treatment" (342). A hospital itself has a certain melancholic mood. However, when the patients were introduced to the research, their current mood interprets the artworks according with their situation, which triggers another emotion or mood of wanting to get through their diseases. In another article, a hospital has an art gallery in where patients can stroll through and observe the artworks and "most respondents reported that interacting with or about the art...improved their mood" (Karnik, Printz, and Finkel 73). With already two supports from different articles, it seems that my research paper is ready.

Though I have two supports, I need three more to meet the minimum requirements. Continuing my research, I have found more support. According to Erika Doss, "Works of art are...'repositories of feelings and emotions.'" This means that art and emotions are tied together. Another article talks specifically about art and mood. Theatrical art can produce a certain mood with the use of various techniques. This mood then later evokes a certain emotional response from the audience, such as fear and terror. Because of this, it would seem like "the filmmaker often appears to have direct access to our nervous system" (Carroll 524). Another one of my articles talks specifically about using art to improve mood. The research article talks about having a group of people view a film, separate them into three groups, and have them draw based on their current mood, positive emotion, or distracting themselves from their current mood. With this experiment, "the primary immediate mood effect of art making appears to be on mood valence" (Dalebroux, Goldstein, and Winner 293) or specific emotions. This article also ties in mood and art together.

With the articles I have found, I should be able to get started with my research paper about the effects of art on mood and emotion. My articles seem a bit different from each other at first glance, but as I started to look more closely, they all share one thing: art and mood or emotion. To make my research paper, I plan to keep my analysis on Small's use of artwork to evoke a certain emotion and mood to the audience, and then I will expand on that by using my secondary sources as a support to my claim.

Works Cited 

Carroll, Noël. "Art and Mood: Preliminary Notes and Conjectures." Monist 86.4 (2003): 521-555. Academic Search Complete. Web. 5 Apr. 2015.

Dalebroux, Anne, Thalia R. Goldstein, and Ellen Winner. "Short-Term Mood Repair Through Art-Making: Positive Emotion Is More Effective Than Venting."Motivation & Emotion 32.4 (2008): 288-295. Academic Search Complete. Web. 5 Apr. 2015.

Doss, Erika. "Affect." American Art 23.1 (2009): 9-11. Academic Search Complete. Web. 5 Apr. 2015.

Hanson, Hazel, et al. "Preferences For Photographic Art Among Hospitalized Patients With Cancer." Oncology Nursing Forum 40.(2013): E337-E345. Academic Search Complete. Web. 5 Apr. 2015.

Karnik, Meghana, Bellamy Printz, and Jennifer Finkel. "A Hospital's Contemporary Art Collection: Effects On Patient Mood, Stress, Comfort, And Expectations." Health Environments Research & Design Journal (HERD) (Vendome Group LLC) 7.3 (2014): 60-77.Academic Search Complete. Web. 5 Apr. 2015.

Small, David. Stitches: A Memoir. New York; Norton 2009. Print