Visual Arts and Human Flourishing

Visual Arts and Human Flourishing brings together thoughtful and innovative thinkers from various visual arts fields such as art history, architecture, public art, and museums, to examine visual arts' relationship to flourishing, well-being, and happiness from the ancient world to the present day. From the poetic musings of exiled Cuban artist Enrique Martinez Celaya, to the practical utopianism of Kulapat Yantrassast as he tries to rescue architecture from the coldness of Modernism; from the musings of Steven Fine about the decorative arts in ancient synagogues in creating community and meaning, to Faya Causey's analysis of the role of amber in celebrations and rituals over the millennia, and throughout the many other chapters of the book as a whole, the contributors examine how visual arts have promoted expansive expressions of an ever more flourishing and thriving humanity.

The essays in this volume, part of The Humanities and Human Flourishing series, demonstrate how the process of thinking, writing, creating, and general curiosity about visual art can play a vital role in human flourishing.

Selma Holo is the Executive Director of USC Museums, as well as a Professor of Art History at Emerita University of Southern California.

Introduction

Part One - Art for Well-Being? Artists and Art Historians
1. "'Art,' 'Well-being,' and Questions without Answers" - Kate Ingold
2. "Rilke's Crocodile Tears: Art, Change, Being, and Human Flourishing" - Enrique Martínez Celaya
3. "Visual Art as Harmony and Challenge" - Larry Silver
4. "All Artists Are Poor: Notes toward a Polemic" - Andy Campbell

Part Two - Serving the Public: Public Art, Communities, Architecture, and Art Museums
5. "Public Art and the Power of Engagement" - Cher Krause Knight and Harriet F. Senie
6. "Amber: The Magic Rubs Off" - Faya Causey
7. "A frame for human flourishing: Notes towards a new architecture of possibility" - Kulapat Yantrasast
8. "'Wellbeing' and 'Flourishing' in the Ancient Synagogue: Art, Vision and the Experience of Holiness" - Steven Fine
9. "Art Museums as a Catalyst for Human Flourishing" - Elliot Bostwick Davis
10. "Can There Be True Flourishing in Our Art Museums Today?" - Selma Holo

Index