Discovering Art & Consciousness

Art To Your Inbox

Venus and Mars by Botticelli:

Botticelli’s painting of Venus and Mars was created to open eyes to the art of seeing. Frederick Franck, painter, sculptor and spiritual teacher said “No wonder once the art of seeing is lost, meaning is lost, and all life seems ever more meaningless.” We know how to read a book and get lost in the other reality of the imagination and we engage in music and are moved by it, but have we forgotten our visionary ability when it comes to art. Paintings such as Botticelli’s Venus and Mars were windows to other worlds, bringing the cosmos into the line of sight of the viewer. Focusing not only the historical context of works of art, but on your intuitive, imaginative and emotional responses to them places the image back into a broader context of knowledge. Cultivating the ability to see into the heart of things helps us consider that, perhaps through art, we can see the shape of a deeper reality. What are your thoughts and intuitions when looking at this painting? Follow the link to our private facebook group to join the discussion.

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Slowing down and really taking time to engage with a work of art, gives you a chance to pause, absorb, reflect and appreciate in depth one great work of art at a time in the comfort of your own home. Broadening perceptions of art, beyond rational analysis, categories and styles, has proven to lower stress levels, increase creativity and effective action in the world. Art is for the senses, intellect and soul, and has the capacity open ways of knowing and seeing that have been lost or forgotten in our post modern age. 

"Mary does not ‘teach’ as such;  she introduces a painting (or an artist, or an idea) and then enters a process of mutual discovery as a co-explorer." Ms Veronica Bennetts 

Today, almost everyone has heard of the positive effects of yoga and meditation. But neuroscience and ancient teachings tell us that deep observation and appreciation of art is transformative for intellectual, emotional and spiritual awareness individually, societally and globally. It is even more vitally important for us today in our challenging times.

Through my experience of studying, researching and teaching traditional Art History I was always intrigued by the world and stories that art opened up. But I sensed something was missing, something that we had lost. The 'looking at art from a distance' approach meant that it remained as an object; devitalised and dead, something there for our inspection and criticism. But art, images, have a vitality. They are, as psychiatrist and thinker, Dr Iain McGilchrist writes, “more like people, living beings than objects”.

Art was never supposed to be interpreted only literally. This is a relatively recent inherited view. Art opened different ways of seeing and knowing that enabled us to better understand ourselves and our place in the world. Today, our times call for us to re-establish this vital and half- forgotten connection. Without it, we act half- hearted, lop-sided in our thinking, disembodied from ourselves and from the senses, imagination and heart.

View an example:

Mona Lisa
Painting by Leonardo da Vinci

Mary Attwood BA (hons) MA

Mary Attwood is an art historian, author, lecturer and teacher and was the founding Chairman of the Victoria branch of The Arts Society, London, a membership charity dedicated to enriching peoples’ lives through the arts. She is also a qualified teacher in lifelong learning and a Yoga Alliance registered yoga, meditation and mindfulness teacher.  She has also worked as creator, producer, publicist and script writer for her own production company and created an award winning line of wellness DVDs, training courses and has ghost written two books published by Watkins. 

Mary holds an MA with distinction in Myth, Cosmology and the Sacred where her thesis, Rebirthing a Lost Vision of Renaissance Art, researched different epistemologies of art and images from a broad context of ancient Greek philosophy, the neuroscientific approach of Dr Iain McGilchrist’s groundbreaking research on the difference of attention of left and right hemispheres of the brain, archetypal psychology of Drs C.G. Jung and J. Hillman and Renaissance artistic approaches. This is currently being transcribed into a book. She also holds a BA honours degree in the History of Art, University of London, where her studies focused on Italian late Medieval and Renaissance art and architecture.