ALL ABOUT ART
Friluftsliv - love the outdoors
It’s a Norwegian concept - our wellbeing is stimulated by experience of the outdoors.
Why do we seek hotel rooms with a great view? Why do patients in hospital beds that have lovely views of nature recover faster? Houses with views of nature command higher prices.
Every weekend, every holiday, there is an exodus, traffic jams, from cities to the countryside. There is a passion for ‘the rural idyll’. Country areas are not intrinsically happier places, the people who live and work there face many challenges, but …. It is a fact that the experience of the outdoors has a positive effect on mental health. Friluftsliv was promoted by Henrik Ibsen, the Norwegian playwright writing on the meaning of life’s purpose. The architect Frank Lloyd Wright urged us : “Stay close to nature, it will never fail you.”
Today there is legitimate scientific evidence (if that was needed!) from highly respected Psychology departments in world-class Universities[1]to confirm that experience of outdoor nature improves our sense of wellbeing, reduces stress and “helps us to feel alive from the inside”.
It is my belief that art can have some of the same effects.
I do not seek to make a precise copy of what I see in the natural world, I prefer to pursue those sensations that I experience, to create something to stand in its own right to evoke some of the same inner reactions for the viewers.
Awe versus nostalgia?
Many lovely paintings are bought, and hang for many years in people’s homes, because of nostalgia. These portray a picture which evokes fond memories. They generate a sense of warmth and improve happiness.
“Ah, Tuscany, I love that place…..”
But just as some cars are designed and built for an urban commute while others are made for rough terrain, there is a range of differences within Landscape art.
“Ecotherapy” now exists, Doctors prescribe walking in nature to improve mental health. People feel better when their neighbourhood is ‘greened’. Compelling scientific evidence is piling up to confirm the positive impact of nature on wellbeing.[2]
Disturbingly, a study in Denmark [3]showed that children raised in the least green neighbourhoods were 55 percent more likely to develop a mental illness than their peers who grew up in the greenest areas, regardless of social standing, the area’s level of affluence, or parental history of mental illness.
Surely Landscape Art can bring some of this to you indoors?
I have many experiences of a sense of awe from my walks in the hills, maybe the look of the sky, the natural flow of the geology, or the way sunlight hits natural colours in the changing seasons – these are the sensations I seek to convey.
[1]University of California at Berkeley
[2] Journal of the American Medical Association Network Open, July 2018,
[3] Engemann and Svenning, Aarhus University, Denmark