Art is Not Optional: The Mind-Bending Power of Learning to See

Bianca Bosker shares 5 key insights from Get the Picture: A Mind-Bending Journey among the Inspired Artists and Obsessive Art Fiends Who Taught Me How to See.

Are you into art? For some of us, visiting museums and galleries is a vital part of life. For others, it’s an impractical luxury, or a bore. But here to make the case for the power of art is Bianca Bosker, author of the NYT bestseller Get the Picture: A Mind-Bending Journey among the Inspired Artists and Obsessive Art Fiends Who Taught Me How to See. Bianca is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Best American Travel Writing. She’s been recognized with awards from the New York Press Club and the Society of Professional Journalists. Read or listen to her key insights below:

The 5 Key Insights:

1. Art isn’t optional—it’s a necessity.

2. Seeing is hallucinating.

3. Art helps us fight the reducing tendencies of our minds.

4. You need to exercise your “Eye.”

5. Nothing beats learning by doing.

1. Art isn’t optional—it’s a necessity.

For most of my adult life, I didn’t know how to “do” art. Going to galleries reliably made me feel like I was at least three tattoos and a master’s degree away from figuring out what was going on. And besides—who had the time? I’d always assumed art was a luxury—I mean, it can’t clothe you, feed you, or be used to kill predators.

But when I started poking around the art world, I began to think that by ignoring art, I was missing out on something big. I’d never met a group of people willing to sacrifice so much for something of so little obvious practical value. Gallerists maxed out credit cards to show hunks of metal they swore could change the world. Artists treated 100-year-old paintings like they were as necessary as vital organs. As I looked around at these art fiends oohing and aahing over weird sculptures of mutilated chairs, I couldn’t stop wondering: Why do we engage with art anyway? Can a few smears of colored rock on cloth—a “painting” as it’s more commonly known—really transform our existence?