Beautiful pieces of art can be the best painkillers

London, Sept 18 : While art is known to express pain in the most beautiful way, a new study has found that looking at a striking painting can offer a distraction from physical pain. o reach the conclusion, the research was carried out by the University of Bari in Italy.

The research could help vindicate hospitals who are accused of wasting money on art and decor as it suggests a pleasant environment helps patients overcome discomfort and pain.

The research team headed by Professor Marina de Tommaso at the Neurophysiopathology Pain Unit questioned a group of men and women to pick the 20 paintings they considered most ugly and most beautiful from a selection of 300 works by artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and Sandro Botticelli.

The volunteers were then asked to contemplate either the beautiful paintings, or the ugly painting, or a blank panel while the team zapped a short laser pulse at their hand, creating a sensation as if they had been pricked by a pin.

The participants rated the pain as being a third less intense while they were viewing the beautiful paintings, compared with when contemplating the ugly paintings or the blank panel.

Electrodes measuring the brain's electrical activity also confirmed a reduced response to the pain when the subject looked at beautiful paintings.

While distractions, such as music, are known to reduce pain in hospital patients, Prof de Tommaso says this is the first result to show that beauty plays a part.

The study has been published in New Scientist.

"Hospitals have been designed to be functional, but we think that their aesthetic aspects should be taken into account too," Telegraph quoted Prof de Tommaso who published her findings in the paper Aesthetic Value of Paintings (And) Affects on Pain Thresholds.

"Beauty obviously offers a distraction that ugly paintings do not. But at least there is no suggestion that ugly surroundings make the pain worse.

"I think these results show that more research is needed into the how a beautiful environment can alleviate suffering," she added.

ANI