OMMM: Our Museum Mindfulness Meditation

What is it about mountains that make people want to climb them? Mountain climber and writer Katie Ives has thought a lot about the ineffable qualities of mountains that appeal to our deepest human instincts, imagination, and senses. From how we define mountains to what mountains can symbolize, Ives and host Lilit Sadoyan dig into the many mindful ways people have engaged with and learned from moun...

Feel still and majestic like a mountain in a meditation inspired by Jean-Joseph-Xavier Bidauld’s painting View of the Bridge and Part of the Town of Cava, Kingdom of Naples (1785–90). A picturesque, verdant scene captures the quiet majesty and peacefulness of the rolling mountains of Southern Italy. Bidauld was drawn to Italy’s landscape, spending years traveling across the country to paint. He re...

For much of history, blue was one of the most fugitive pigments in art. Writer and historian Victoria Finlay, author of the book The Brilliant History of Color in Art , got to study Edvard Munch’s Starry Night in great detail during her time at the Getty Center researching this book and admired his nuanced use of the color. She speaks with host Lilit Sadoyan about this powerful color, its sources,...

Bring awareness to the memories, thoughts, and emotions evoked during this blue light visualization inspired by Edvard Munch’s Starry Night (1893) and his many uses of the color blue. Munch’s Starry Night is an emotionally charged painting of the coastline in Asgardstrand, Norway, where the artist recalled falling in love. Feelings were an important component to Munch’s artistic practice, and he b...

How does Getty’s Head of Grounds and Gardens approach his job caring for the museum’s largest work of art? Brian Houck speaks with host Lilit Sadoyan about his work with Robert Irwin’s Central Garden (1997) at the Getty Center. The practice of gardening—which requires accepting things outside your control, like the weather—has a lot to teach mindfulness meditation practitioners. If you missed it,...

Visualize your thoughts, worries, and stress floating away, like a leaf or petal on a garden stream, in this flowing water meditation inspired by Robert Irwin’s Central Garden (1997). Irwin’s garden is the largest work in the Getty Museum’s collection. Composed of living plants, carefully selected boulders, and landscape features, the artwork—and our experience of it—is always changing with the cy...

Art can contain traces of how, when, and where it was made—and conservators are the experts who get up close and personal to reveal those stories. When Getty paintings conservator Devi Ormond discovered a bit of a mysterious something stuck to the paint in Vincent van Gogh’s Irises (1889), she arranged a trip to the site where it was painted—the Monastery of Saint Paul de Mausole at Saint Rémy in...

Take time to notice the subtle sounds, feelings, and smells around you with a sensory awareness meditation inspired by Vincent van Gogh’s Irises (1889).  Van Gogh’s Irises is one of the best-known works in the Getty collection. This was one of the first paintings the artist began after entering an asylum following his mental breakdown in Arles, France. Van Gogh found respite and recovery in the ga...

Get a taste of our first video podcast (coming June 16!) with this trailer. OMMM: Our Museum Mindfulness Meditation podcast encourages you to engage with works of art mindfully, wherever you are. Part art history, part mindfulness meditation, each episode focuses on one work of art and uses it as an inspiration for meditation and reflection. Learn about Edvard Munch’s time on Norway’s coast, then...

Introducing Getty’s first meditation and mindfulness podcast, OMMM: Our Museum Mindfulness Meditation. Part art history, part mindfulness meditation, each episode focuses on one work of art and uses it as an inspiration for meditation and reflection. Learn about Edvard Munch’s time on Norway’s coast then imagine the blue light of his Starry Night traveling through your body, releasing tension as i...