Is there a connection between Empathy and Art?

We speak about artists being emotional beings, but being emotional doesn’t exactly equal being emotionally intelligent, and empathy is the third skill in emotional intelligence.

I think I was left speechless after watching artist Christian Hook‘s video of creating the portrait of actor Alan Cumming.

Christian Hook (perhaps unknowingly) illustrates how empathy translates into not just a great portrait but also into a great portrait painting experience. Watching this video started a train of thoughts in my head.  I am posting it here because I might want to come back to it and watch it again.

Christian Hook’s initiative to get his portrait done so that he could feel what it was like to be on the other side of the easel, made me reflect upon the connection between empathy and art – and I realized that this connection could be transformational – both for the artist and for their art.