Art has the power to change our minds. But does this hold true while viewing artwork on a screen? This issue was chosen for investigation by an international research team directed by the University of Vienna, the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, and the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics (MPIEA) in Frankfurt am Main. The findings have now been published in the journal Computers in Human Behaviour as an open-access publication.

A Google Arts and Culture interactive Monet Water Lily art installation was watched by 240 study participants. They submitted information about their mental state, how much joy they felt when looking at the photographs, and how meaningful they thought the event was by filling out a questionnaire. After only a few minutes of watching, the results showed considerable changes in mood and anxiety.