Abstract
This article focuses on religiousness and spirituality in the art works of psychiatric patients of Nikkilä Hospital, Finland. The pictures analysed here belong to a collection held at the Helsinki City Museum and they were made during the twentieth century. The theoretical frame of the study is a cultural study of mental health. The collection is approached as presenting a specific kind of imagery which has connections not only to the personal history and diagnoses of the patients; their cultural context and hospital environment is also taken into account. The religiousness and spirituality of the Nikkilä collection are also compared with outsider art and examples of art history internationally.
Highlights
The Virgin Mary with her child, the Christ carrying the crown of thorns, angels and devils, pictures of churches, symbols of the evangelists, crosses and anchors, ships and boats, spiritual landscapes
In the collection of pictures made by the psychiatric patients of Nikkilä Hospital there are numerous motifs and symbols which can be clearly categorized as religious, but there are works whose religiousness and spirituality can be interpreted more widely
The Nikkilä Hospital, a mental health facility located in Sipoo, was founded in the
Summary
This article focuses on religiousness and spirituality in the art works of psychiatric patients of Nikkilä Hospital, Finland. The pictures analysed here belong to a collection held at the Helsinki City Museum and they were made during the twentieth century. The theoretical frame of the study is a cultural study of mental health. The collection is approached as presenting a specific kind of imagery which has connections to the personal history and diagnoses of the patients; their cultural context and hospital environment is taken into account. The religiousness and spirituality of the Nikkilä collection are compared with outsider art and examples of art history inter nationally
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