Beauty as a choice to improve health and care: painting, literature and music as useful to the ‘sciences of life’
The icon is the phrase attributed to Prince Myshkin, the protagonist of “The Idiot” by Fëdor Dostoevsky: “Beauty will save the world”. It was not a consolatory motto, but rather an invitation to seek, in the shadows of the miseries and pain of daily existence, those traces of grace and morality that allow us to raise our gaze towards a better condition of thought and life. The idea was taken up again, in more recent times, by Tzvetan Todorov in a book of the same title, linking the thoughts of Oscar Wilde, Rainer Maria Rilke and Marina Cvetaeva to those of the Russian writer.
Beauty, therefore, as the search for balance, quality, measure, as well as an aesthetic value (in full knowledge that already at the time of the Greek philosophers, aesthetics and ethics were common areas of reflection). Beauty as a way of escape from suffering.
These are the first thoughts that come to mind about the recent Humanitas project “La cura e la bellezza” (Care and Beauty), created with the Poldi Pezzoli Museum in Milan for the San Pio X clinic. The walls of the health facility bear reproductions of the “Dama” by Pietro del Pollaiolo, with her elegant and composed gaze and the famous pearl necklace, followed by works by Hayez, Botticelli, Canaletto, Grechetto, Sassoferrato, Previtali, Sofonisba Anguissola, and other artists, all there to mark the times of the wait, to offer a moment of serenity in conditions of suffering, to provide a moment of rest for doctors and nurses, patients and their families, and for those who, for one reason or another, pass through the rooms of care, laboratories, clinics, and hospital wards. But also to accompany moments of happiness (at San Pio X there is a busy maternity ward: the new lives of baby girls and boys begin here).
“We are a home that provides care. And that wonderful house-museum, the Poldi Pezzoli, helps us evolve and become a true home for patients and staff,” says Gianfelice Rocca, president of Humanitas.
Paintings. And art objects from the Poldi Pezzoli collection, clocks, timepieces, porcelain (the project was curated by Daniele Lupo). With the underlying idea of highlighting gazes, landscapes, flashes of eyes and intertwined hands, light, and colours, to give substance and depth to life as it flows—life that surely deserves the chance for a moment of respite, a pause, a breath amidst suffering. To be specific, therapeutic beauty.
The initiative with Poldi Pezzoli is the third stage of a journey embarked upon years ago by Humanitas. With the Brera Museum for the IRCCS of Rozzano and then with Accademia Carrara for Humanitas Gavazzeni of Bergamo (a film on this initiative, directed by Nicola Martini for Social Content Factory, has just come first at the Made Film Festival of Bergamo for corporate cinema, along with “Includere per crescere” by Bnl/Bnp Paribas).
The choices that concern the relationship between beauty and health are important ones. And they certainly cannot be applied generally to all healthcare facilities, in a sector already burdened with difficulties, shortages, tensions, economic and functional limitations. But they are interesting choices worth considering nonetheless. Because the quality of the healthcare environment affects the mood and psychological climate of patients and family members, doctors and nurses and therefore improves the psychological inclination to give space to the hope of recovery (to give just one example, the paediatric wards of the Niguarda Hospital, in Milan, were furnished and decorated a few years ago, with cheerful and colourful drawings, by Pirelli; and several other companies have moved in similar directions in other hospital facilities).
Moreover, even in the business world, there is a growing awareness of the importance of a positive relationship between companies and stakeholders, the people in the communities affected by the company’s activities. A virtuous circle between “doing, doing well and doing good”. A relationship of social and civil values that goes beyond the strict role of the company as an actor that produces economic value.
Corporate culture, in fact, must be understood as a culture of sustainability and social responsibility. And the Life Sciences are experienced not merely as a sector of healthcare but as a broader domain related to health and quality of life. A dimension, moreover, in which the world of Italian businesses can share exemplary stories.
Care and beauty, then. As a personal and social choice. Reflecting on visual arts, following the Humanitas paradigm. But also on theatre and music. On poetry and literature (“Curarsi con i libri” was the title of an extraordinary volume by Ella Berthoud and Susan Elderkin, published about ten years ago by Sellerio: “Rimedi letterari per ogni malanno”). On all aspects of the Italian “polytechnic culture” that continues to combine humanistic and scientific knowledge, beauty and technology, memory and innovation. With an idea of “integral humanism” that embraces the person in their complex wholeness and the social body with its bonds of solidarity and inclusion, along with the ability to value diversity. A healthy choice. But also a far-sighted idea of civilisation. A robust social capital.
The icon is the phrase attributed to Prince Myshkin, the protagonist of “The Idiot” by Fëdor Dostoevsky: “Beauty will save the world”. It was not a consolatory motto, but rather an invitation to seek, in the shadows of the miseries and pain of daily existence, those traces of grace and morality that allow us to raise our gaze towards a better condition of thought and life. The idea was taken up again, in more recent times, by Tzvetan Todorov in a book of the same title, linking the thoughts of Oscar Wilde, Rainer Maria Rilke and Marina Cvetaeva to those of the Russian writer.
Beauty, therefore, as the search for balance, quality, measure, as well as an aesthetic value (in full knowledge that already at the time of the Greek philosophers, aesthetics and ethics were common areas of reflection). Beauty as a way of escape from suffering.
These are the first thoughts that come to mind about the recent Humanitas project “La cura e la bellezza” (Care and Beauty), created with the Poldi Pezzoli Museum in Milan for the San Pio X clinic. The walls of the health facility bear reproductions of the “Dama” by Pietro del Pollaiolo, with her elegant and composed gaze and the famous pearl necklace, followed by works by Hayez, Botticelli, Canaletto, Grechetto, Sassoferrato, Previtali, Sofonisba Anguissola, and other artists, all there to mark the times of the wait, to offer a moment of serenity in conditions of suffering, to provide a moment of rest for doctors and nurses, patients and their families, and for those who, for one reason or another, pass through the rooms of care, laboratories, clinics, and hospital wards. But also to accompany moments of happiness (at San Pio X there is a busy maternity ward: the new lives of baby girls and boys begin here).
“We are a home that provides care. And that wonderful house-museum, the Poldi Pezzoli, helps us evolve and become a true home for patients and staff,” says Gianfelice Rocca, president of Humanitas.
Paintings. And art objects from the Poldi Pezzoli collection, clocks, timepieces, porcelain (the project was curated by Daniele Lupo). With the underlying idea of highlighting gazes, landscapes, flashes of eyes and intertwined hands, light, and colours, to give substance and depth to life as it flows—life that surely deserves the chance for a moment of respite, a pause, a breath amidst suffering. To be specific, therapeutic beauty.
The initiative with Poldi Pezzoli is the third stage of a journey embarked upon years ago by Humanitas. With the Brera Museum for the IRCCS of Rozzano and then with Accademia Carrara for Humanitas Gavazzeni of Bergamo (a film on this initiative, directed by Nicola Martini for Social Content Factory, has just come first at the Made Film Festival of Bergamo for corporate cinema, along with “Includere per crescere” by Bnl/Bnp Paribas).
The choices that concern the relationship between beauty and health are important ones. And they certainly cannot be applied generally to all healthcare facilities, in a sector already burdened with difficulties, shortages, tensions, economic and functional limitations. But they are interesting choices worth considering nonetheless. Because the quality of the healthcare environment affects the mood and psychological climate of patients and family members, doctors and nurses and therefore improves the psychological inclination to give space to the hope of recovery (to give just one example, the paediatric wards of the Niguarda Hospital, in Milan, were furnished and decorated a few years ago, with cheerful and colourful drawings, by Pirelli; and several other companies have moved in similar directions in other hospital facilities).
Moreover, even in the business world, there is a growing awareness of the importance of a positive relationship between companies and stakeholders, the people in the communities affected by the company’s activities. A virtuous circle between “doing, doing well and doing good”. A relationship of social and civil values that goes beyond the strict role of the company as an actor that produces economic value.
Corporate culture, in fact, must be understood as a culture of sustainability and social responsibility. And the Life Sciences are experienced not merely as a sector of healthcare but as a broader domain related to health and quality of life. A dimension, moreover, in which the world of Italian businesses can share exemplary stories.
Care and beauty, then. As a personal and social choice. Reflecting on visual arts, following the Humanitas paradigm. But also on theatre and music. On poetry and literature (“Curarsi con i libri” was the title of an extraordinary volume by Ella Berthoud and Susan Elderkin, published about ten years ago by Sellerio: “Rimedi letterari per ogni malanno”). On all aspects of the Italian “polytechnic culture” that continues to combine humanistic and scientific knowledge, beauty and technology, memory and innovation. With an idea of “integral humanism” that embraces the person in their complex wholeness and the social body with its bonds of solidarity and inclusion, along with the ability to value diversity. A healthy choice. But also a far-sighted idea of civilisation. A robust social capital.