Author: Barbara Nwosu

Title: “The Power of Visual Media – Art and Self Esteem”

Series: The Aesthetic Pleasures of Contemporary Art

Publisher: Wholistic Lifestyle Consultants (2007)

Date of completion or publication: 9/21/2007

Word Count of Text: 528

Brief Description: The Effects of Contemporary Visual Art on Self Esteem

“The Power of Visual Media – Art and Self Esteem”

Gorgeous, smart, rich and never make mistakes? The internet and mass media shrunk the world into our living rooms. If you spend a lot of time watching TV, going to movies and reading the daily propaganda, it seems as if everyone is rich, smart, beautiful has perfect lives and never makes mistakes. This is the power of visual media to shape our concepts of ourselves and the world.

Advertising is the most profitable form of contemporary visual art today. Television shows and movies have gotten us turned all around and twisted. It’s a miracle anyone smiles nowadays. Everywhere we go, beautiful people are on billboards, magazines, newspapers and on buildings selling us the idea of being and looking like them.

I’m not judging the ads or the strategy, it works! Visual images sell us lots of everything.  Here’s why: Studies show that babies as young as six months old respond more positively to people who are beautiful. It is human nature to want to look at beautiful people and beautiful things. We want to be like those people in the ads. However, if we don’t feel that we measure up to the unrealistic standards, we often condemn ourselves.

Contemporary visual art forms such as paintings, sculpture, and crafts are considered by many to be boring and not relevant. Many people believe that if they have problems, they can be solved in an hour or less no matter what went wrong. That is, unless you watch Jerry Springer.

Then you tend to believe that everyone alive is related by no more than three generations back. If you buy into these images, no real people go to art galleries, museums, theaters or are interested in visual art today.

So today’s tip, if you can follow it, is to tone down on the tube. This may be harder to do than giving up smoking. Artistic works or objects are commonly accepted as a reproduction, image or interpretation of an idea and not real. Even to most popular media is not “real” even if the word “reality” is in the description. Most of the people are chosen to be on those shows more for their looks than their abilities.

This destructive form of contemporary visual art is crafted to literally exploit our misconceptions that we aren’t as good or as worthy as the people who appear to have dream lives.  Wearing the same clothes as everyone else might get you accepted, and that can be very important. Having the “bling” is nice, but when you do these things only to impress others, you are setting yourself up for problems. All that stuff matters less to those who walk to their own beat.

 When I studied artists throughout history and artists living today, I found that the things that contributed most to actual self esteem and self value are things like integrity, honesty, a solid work ethic, honor, being kind to others, perseverance, taking care of your body and mind, continual learning, optimism, how you use your money, a sense of purpose and being surrounded by aesthetically beautiful or inspirational visual art forms.