ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the value of work of art in Lucian Freud's painting Hotel Bedroom. For some people, nihilists, nothing is of value. For others, the only things that are of value are human experiences. The view being put forward is that the value of Hotel Bedroom is an instrumental value. The value of a painting is the non-instrumentally valuable experience of that painting, where that experience is based in an understanding of the painting. The chapter examines three characteristics of instrumental value that will be relevant to our discussion. It also characterizes the basic explanation roughly as: a work of art is valuable to the extent that it contributed to the psychological well-being of the artist. There is also a form of psychotherapy that uses art and the creation of art as a means of expression and communication. The point of art-therapy classes is to produce something that will aid psychological well-being.
