The interpretation of art

Works of art present problems of both interpretation and evaluation. Evaluation is not the concern of this article (see aesthetics), but one problem about interpretation deserves to be mentioned. Works of art are often difficult, and how to interpret them properly is far from obvious. The question then arises as to what factors should guide efforts at interpretation.

At one extreme lies the view known as isolationism, according to which a knowledge of the artist’s biography, historical background, and other factors is irrelevant to an appreciation of the work of art and usually is harmful in that it gets in the way, tending to substitute a recital of these facts for the more difficult attempt to come to grips with the work of art itself. If the work of art is not understood on first acquaintance, it should be read (or heard, or viewed) again and yet again. Constant re-exposure to it, so that the recipient is totally absorbed in and permeated by it, is the way to maximum appreciation.

At the other extreme, contextualism holds that the work of art should always be apprehended in its context or setting and that not merely knowledge about it but total appreciation of it is much richer if it is approached with this knowledge. According to the contextualists, not only literature (ordinarily appreciated contextually) but also the other arts, even nonrepresentational painting and music, should be apprehended in this way.

No critic or art lover need hold to either position in its undiluted form: a person could well be an isolationist about some kinds of art, such as music, a contextualist about others, such as historical dramas and religious paintings. It is essential to be more specific, however, about the factors—other than careful and repeated perusal of the work of art itself—that the contextualist holds are either necessary or extremely helpful in the appreciation of works of art:

1. Other works of art by the same artist. If the artist has created other works, particularly in the same genre, acquaintance with them may enhance appreciation of the work at hand. Quantity of works has no particular merit in itself, but when, say, one of the piano concertos of the 18th-century Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is heard, the auditor may (often largely unconsciously) compare its mode, thematic material, and method of development and resolution with some of Mozart’s 25 other piano concertos. Knowledge of the entire corpus of his work in a certain genre may heighten enjoyment of a particular work.

2. Other works of art in the same genre by other artists, particularly in the same style or tradition. Appreciation of the pastoral poem “Lycidas,” by the English poet John Milton, is doubtless enhanced by a study of the pastoral tradition in poetry, with which Milton supposed his readers to be acquainted. To study “Lycidas” in isolation would needlessly deprive the reader of much of the richness of texture of the poem and would even make some of the references in it unintelligible.

3. A study of relevant facts about the artistic medium, such as the instrumental limitations or advantages of pipe organs in the time of the German composer Johann Sebastian Bach or the modes of presentation of ancient Greek tragedies in the Athenian theatre. An acquaintance with the artistic conventions and idioms in which the artist operated often leads to better understanding of certain aspects of the artist’s work and helps to avert misunderstandings of it.

4. A study of the age in which the artist lived—the spirit of the time and its current ideas, the complex influences that molded the artist, even the social, economic, and political conditions of the time and place in which the artist worked. Sometimes such knowledge is of dubious relevance. It can be argued that no aid to the study of the 82 string quartets and 104 symphonies of the 18th-century Austrian composer Joseph Haydn is provided by reading about the political and economic conditions of his day. It is interesting to study the evolution of the string quartet or symphony from its origin through Haydn to the present, but this would appear to be an evolution traceable entirely within the art form and not dependent on factors outside it. This, however, is not always so—particularly in literature, where a study of such exterior factors seems to be of much more relevance. It would seem important to know, for example, that Milton was aware of the new Copernican astronomy but deliberately chose in Paradise Lost to make his cosmos Ptolemaic, the antiquated astronomical system that was already steeped in literature, mythology, and tradition.

5. A study of the artist’s life. Anthologists of literature constantly assume that this is an important consideration, since they supply detailed biographies prior to their selections by each author. It is true, of course, that knowledge of the artist’s life can distract attention from the artist’s work, as with those who cannot hear Ludwig van Beethoven’s late quartets without constantly thinking, “What a pity it was that he was deaf at the time!” Yet such knowledge may also heighten experience of a work; some would say, at any rate, that it helps to know that Milton was blind when he wrote the sonnet “On His Blindness.” It is the relevance of this kind of knowledge to an appreciation of the poem, as a poem, that is in dispute. In every case, however, it should be kept in mind that acquaintance with the artist’s biography is a means toward an end, the enhanced appreciation and understanding of the work of art, and that otherwise it is aesthetically irrelevant. The facts about the artist’s life are the means and the enhanced appreciation the end, not the other way around, as is often found, for example, in psychoanalytic essays attempting to infer from works of art facts about the artist’s subconscious conflicts; in these cases the work is being taken as the means and the study of the artist’s life as the end.

6. A study of the artist’s intentions. When difficulties arise as to what to make of a work of art or when several conflicting interpretations come to mind, how is the difficulty to be resolved? One obvious suggestion is to consult the artist, if that is possible; the artist’s records or memoirs, if any; or the testimony of the artist’s friends, acquaintances, or associates. It is tempting to believe that, whichever way the artist intended it, this is the way the work should be interpreted. For surely artists know their own work better than anyone else does, and for that reason their own word should be law.

This temptation is hotly decried by other critics as “the intentional fallacy”—the fallacy (if it is a fallacy) of believing that whichever way the artist intended it is by definition the way it really is. Works of art should stand on their own, without help from their creators. If the artist’s intentions are not sufficiently realized within the work, forcing the recipient to go outside for help, this is held to be an artistic defect. Moreover, once the work has been completed and presented to the world, it belongs to the world and no longer exclusively to the artist, and in its interpretation the artist now becomes just one critic among many, whose word should be respected but not taken as the final authority. Perhaps other critics can think of better interpretations than the artist did, which give a greater aesthetic reward in subsequent encounters with the work; perhaps there are even acceptable interpretations (such as Freudian interpretations of Shakespeare’s Hamlet) that the artist could not possibly have thought of at the time.

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe set forth three criteria for critics to consider in interpreting and evaluating a work of art: (1) What was the artist trying to do? (2) Did the artist do it? (3) Was it worth doing? The first of the three is intentionalistic, and, says the intentionalist, surely this is plausible: artists can hardly be blamed for failing to do what they had no intention of doing. It must first be known, then, what they were trying to do.

But the anti-intentionalist points out that the intention makes no difference, only the product does. If the ballet dancer excuses a fall in the middle of the dance by saying that it was intended, the dance is just as marred aesthetically as if the dancer had fallen accidentally.

The persistent questioner might ask, however, if there are not at least some works of art in which the intentions of the artist have to be known? Suppose that a contemporary critic reads a dull, stodgy, moralistic Victorian novel and says at the end, “What an excellent parody of a Victorian novel!” But it was not a parody. Its intentions were deadly serious—and should not this be known in order to interpret and evaluate it properly? Not at all, replies the anti-intentionalist. All the critic has to say is, “As a Victorian novel, this is deadly dull; as a parody of a Victorian novel, it is brilliant; if the author intended it in the former way, so much the worse for the author”—the work can still be praised for being a brilliant parody, even if it wasn’t intended as one.

Still, the intentionalist has a point: sometimes the clue to unlocking an otherwise intransigent work may come from the artist’s statement of intention, and a plausible interpretation might be unobtainable without it. Such a suggestion might have come from a reader (or viewer or listener) rather than the artist, but there is no point in disdaining helpful hints, regardless of their source. If the suggestion does come from the artist, that is nothing against it. Perhaps a work is less aesthetically perfect because it requires outside clues to its interpretation, but few works of art even approach perfection, and they may yet amply repay attention, all the more if some plausible suggestion comes from the outside. The 20th-century Russian composer Sergey Prokofiev intended his Classical Symphony to be a playful homage to the classical symphonic form developed by Haydn, and, regardless of whether the suggestion that it be construed this way came from Prokofiev or from someone else, if it is rewarding to listen to it in this way, then no one gains by refusing to accept the suggestion. A statement of intention is not the only key to unlocking the secrets of works of art, but it is one key among many, and there appears to be no good reason why it should not be used.