Art Matters

My fiance linked me to this article yesterday: “Monet? Gauguin? Using art to make better doctors” from The Boston Globe.  I’m all for promoting arts classes to students who are unlikely to take them of their own accord, and all for arguing that art can serve a purpose greater than expensive decor.  At first I did, however, feel a little like works of art were being used in a type of high-brow I Spy until I got to this section:

“The most difficult part of the class for the high-achieving Harvard students, Miller said, seems to be letting go of their urge to find the one right answer.

[...]

‘When we get fixated on getting the right answer, we miss the diagnosis because it blocks the ability to think flexibly,’ Miller said. ‘We want them to puzzle through things’”.

This is exactly what I love about art: that it makes me puzzle through things, makes me revel in the multiplicity of meanings and narratives and feelings.  If classes in art can help more rigid, linear thinkers open their minds to broader possibilities, that fills me with all sorts of hope.