Brimming with upbeat guidance, this accessible handbook shows how anyone can use art to enlighten, uplift, calm and ease stress and anxieties.

Visual art is enlightening, challenging, informative and arresting; but it can also be therapeutic, reducing anxiety and stress levels, and offering perspective on the challenges that we all face in our lives.

This guide introduces readers to new ways of looking at a wide range of art. Through careful examination and explanation, it investigates how engaging with art and drawing upon its ideas can help everyone feel connected and inspired. From Frida Kahlo confronting her anxieties to Henri Matisse embracing happiness, from Louise Bourgeois conquering fear to Auguste Rodin finding hope, it shows how you too can use art to work through difficult emotions and improve your mental wellbeing. Even art that unsettles can help us to think and feel differently.

Artists have been conveying aspirations, emotions, ideas and stories for thousands of years; this book will help everyone to ?read' these messages, and thereby to enrich their own emotional life through art.

Susie Hodge is a bestselling author, art historian, historian and artist. She is the author of more than ninety books for adults and children. Her previous books include Why Your Five Year Old Could Not Have Done That (2012), My Big Art Show (2014), Art in Detail (2016), Why is Art Full of Naked People? (2016), Modern Art in Detail (2017) and Painting Masterclass (2019), all published by Thames & Hudson.

Introduction
1. Dissipating Anger
2. Conquering Fear
3. Confronting Anxiety
4. Relieving Stress
5. Tackling Loneliness
6. Overcoming Sorrow
7. Inspiring Self-Reflection
8. Learning Empathy
9. Gaining Inspiration
10. Creating Energy
11. Finding Hope
12. Embracing Happiness