Potential of the fine arts and art therapy

Abstract

The present text examines the extent to which functions of the fine arts can be transferred to art therapy. Thereby it was worked out that art provides the following aspects which can be “used” therapeutically: sensory esthetic experiences, cathartic effect and stimulation of cognitive and educational competences. Art-based theories of the subject art therapy consider in particular three positions: insights of the Bauhaus artists, the “extended concept of art”/Beuys 1984, the procedures of the performance artists and an art philosophical position of Dewey (1934). The material plays a special role in art as well as in therapy. While in art therapy the material not only stimulates esthetic experiences, contact, resonance and memories, the material also represents a counterpart, a “third” and a space for action or communication. Language occupies an intermediary position.