Too harsh a response to the suggestion of “intent”.
To me, yes, there is an intent coming from the artist.
You haven’t heard of a novelist who objected to a film adaptation of their book?
It’s not a tyranny by an artist to want to preserve the original intent or meaning, or theme of their works of art. After all, didn’t this thread discuss art as communication? Yes? Okay, then let the artist be heard. And as art lovers, let us not be super-indulgent on whatever we want to make out of this or that work, including sitting on the Van Gogh chair by Nicola Bolla, a chair not meant to be sat on.
My position rejected subjectivity, both in indulging the artist’s interpretation as controlling and in indulging the receipient’s interpretation as controlling. The artistic quality exists in a real way, and it is the artist that illuminates that quality. This is no different from any description of reality. A non-fiction writer is not the best source to determine the accuracy of his writing.
I’m arguing that the artistic expression identifies something of true meaning, and the artist is not in the dictatorial position of declaring what meaning his art identifies. That is, an artist who tells me his poem means X can be wrong.
So sure, an artist wants his work expressed by others in a manner true to his intent, but that doesn’t mean the preservation of his intent will advance the artistic quality of the art. The “art” is what exists in the piece that gives it meaning.
The art is measured based upon its correspondence to reality: social, psychological, existential,etc. As in, what does it accurately tell me about the meaning of human life.
That seems trivially true. If you want to know hte meaning of a piece of art, ask the author.
You’re free to interpolate and author your own meaning, but I don’t that affects the former.
Some art has no author to ask. The Bible, for example, and the bulk of mythology. The stories are passed down and altered along the way. It’s like asking the author of a law what it means, which is difficult to do, considering there are hundreds of authors.
It’s also possible that I might ask the author to explain the meaning of his work and he would wrong. It might not mean what he meant to say. It could mean more, or less.
There is also the problem of the subconscious, which I don’t resort to for meaning, but I point out only to dispute the proposition that asking the author what he means is a reliable means of determining meaning. That is, it’s very likely people say and do all sorts of things and they have no conscious understanding why. I might write a story that tells of my unresolved trauma of childhood, yet it would take some deep analysis to decipher that. In that instance, you would ask the psychoanalyst what I meant, not me.
But I reject that too, meaning I don’t look to the individual consciousness to determin meaning, but I look to the collective consciousness. There are certain elements of deeper meaning consistent across cultures, revealed in consistencies of mythology and religions, where certain themes repeat. An artist acts as an instrument for illuminating that reality, but he does not create the significance or wisdom of his creation. The profundity of the statement exists within the statement, but what makes it profound is not the speaker. He revealed that truth.
This means that to understand the significance of the statement, we need to look at the meaning and purpose in our lives, not just ask what the author meant when he said it.
Fair - but i’m unsure that changes the principal. That’s also true of Art discovered (or popularized) posthumously. I’m unsure we would say that’s somehow disinteresting in terms of there being an answer hypothetically available.
Your point about the bible is a good one though. Much more careful here - That multiple authors do not communicate doesn’t seem to me to remove the idea that the art was authored. I, probably, wouldn’t consider the Bible art though - partially for this processional reason.
Hmm - also true, and fair. But if that’s what it means, that’s what it means. I’m unsure the fact that it’s imprecise does a lot. I create a heck of a lot of art. Some, so long ago, i’m unsure of the initial motivator without delving in a bit (which is invariably successful, btw) but I am quite sure there are no pieces I have generated that do not carry a meaning, howveer vague it may have been at the time.
None of this is to say that meaning cannot change. There’s a great story from Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam about one of their songs which is, quite obviously, about sexual trauma, inter alia. The chorus is “I’m still alive”. Their fans have taken this to be life-affirming rather than a complaint (which it clearly is in the song). Eddie has explicitly stated the meaning of hte song, and then explained that hte crowd and their reactions to the song have changed the meaning for him. This doesn’t alter the actual meaning of the song - which he explicitly states. I think this can be murky, but ultimately hte author is the author.
Accounting for the previous two paras, I reject this entirely. I think this is a potential, and something many people do with great aplomb (myself included) to interpolated, relate to and instatantiate in one’s life what one gets from art. Not its meaning. I do not think its fair to say that your interpretation is the piece’s meaning, i guess.
As an artist, I can tell you point blank your paragraph regarding “elements of deeper meaning” that this is counter to the artists process that I understand, and doesn’t represent much of anything I do with art. It’s getting into what some call “airy fairy” talk at times, which may be why I’m resistant, for sure - but it tells me nothing is my issue.
Regarding subconscious, while I don’t in principle reject this, I can only smirk at the idea that we can tell an artist they are wrong about the meaning of their art personally. The psychoanalyst is grasping in the dark at straws that may not be there, with the confidence of a judge handing down a ruling. Almost certainly inappropriate in almost all scenarios (to me, entirely).
Thank you for this topic! As a Russian and an artist, I appreciate the question on a special level. Tolstoy is wrong, as many time he is, art is all those things he denies it to be, and more, of course, and so right in seeing one of the main important results it produces. It shows us we all are human, we experience the same emotions, we appreciate and understand each other beyond words and differences in culture in language. It unites us as in human race and lets us exist on the same wave. When my kids or friends ask how is this thing art? I ask them back - did it make you feel something? Even: Displeasure. Disgust. Superiority. It makes you feel genuinely something and most probably you’ll remember this moment way better than looking at a pretty picture. Thus, it moved you, engaged your senses, reminded you you are alive, made you voice an opinion. Made you exercise your human senses and act like one. It accomplished what art is. Many human activities bring us together: singing, dancing, yelling at hate rallies. Art allows us to feel together individually in a peace of your home, quietude of a museum, someone’s dining room, you name it. It allows you to feel in unison with someone across the world or across time. It us a universal human language we all speak it. Sometimes we say things deemed by most ugly.
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I don’t think the artist cares about the nomenclature “artistic” as much as “inspired”. Maybe this is not easy to grasp but the last thing they want their art described as is artistic.
Someone can correct me on this.
Yeah, nice try.
Interesting. I almost never feel this way about art. For me, it is an entirely subjective experience. It’s as if the work exists solely for me, in a vacuum. I’ve collected art on and off over the years, and for me the objects are about creating new friends in my private space. Paintings and sculptures don’t generally communicate directly to me from the artist. I allow my own personality to imbue the works with personal interpretations, as I have negligable interest in what the artist thinks they were doing or what they intended to convey, assuming we can even know this. Art for me is a springboard to expand my own imaginative capacities.
You don’t accept this account?
Perhaps he means no known author. I can understand his “try nice” because yes, someone somewhere obviously did have to write or otherwise create the works that currently have no known authors attached to them. We’ll likely simply never know who they were, and if there were multiple, we’ll also likely never know just precisely and to what degree how much any given author contributed to a particular story or description of an actual or non-actual event within works that contain multiple. That’s reasonable, I’d say.
Otherwise, we’d enter a dynamic of people “doing things just to do them” with no actual real intent or message. Which is possible. I might simply have wanted to learn how to paint a tree because I was bored, did so, mastered it through many failed attempts and someone found one of my failed attempts and framed it as some “great expression of the human spirit” when in reality I was just mindlessly—essentially mechanistically—practicing what another told me to for no real quantifiable reason attached.
This could in theory translate to—as far as literary and oral works—something like a bedtime story a parent made up on the spot absentmindedly without even paying attention to any of the characters or events, that a child happened to memorize and proliferated as an adult thus becoming a mainstream myth in a given society or culture’s zeitgeist. It’s entirely possible.
So, now that I think about it I think I have a bit more clarity in regards to @Hanover’s position where intent isn’t necessarily an all-or-nothing defining factor. This sounds to me like a (just about literally) “anything can be Art” sort of view. But I wouldn’t know without asking him.
Actually quite the opposite. I’m arguing an aesthetic realism which grounds meaning in something universal, denying specifically that either the artist or consumer of art lays claim to meaning through their subjective belief.
The argument I’m pushing back against is the one directional subjectivity that proclaims the arts meaning fully comes from the artist.
But this is question begging from my perspective. I’ve denied the artist’s subjective authority in declaring what is art, so your appeal to the artist’s view holds no weight.
And I’m an artist myself, so I don’t need to seek an artist to figure this out.
This comment might lack substance.
Huh. That’s, a bit tricky for my mind to process. What is this “universal something” as it relates to meaning and aesthetic qualities? How would you best explain it to someone not quite up to the level of speed you are?
Absolutely. I can see that. Is that something like a painting of a bloody war can be terrifying and show the darkest depths of humanity to one person, whereas another person might view it as empowering to the human spirit showing that man can stand up against his oppressors in an ultimate display of courage, regardless of win or loss? Or am I way off here? Similar to how a painting of a dead person can symbolize horror and mortality or, with the right attitude or “spin” of context, something beautiful.
At a dinner party Robert Frost was conversing with a pretty young woman. “I just love your latest poem,” she gushed. “But I’m not sure I understand it. What does it mean?”
“What do you want me to do,” replied the poet. “Say it over again in worser English?”
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The art comes from the artist, so the art’s meaning comes from the artist. But the artist is not always aware of what that meaning comprises.
Consider the statement, “love conquers all.” Does the meaning derive from the speaker or does it derive from the fact that love conquers all? That is, what is the meaning of “love conquers all?” Am I in the best position to explain what that means just because I said it, even if I were the first to say it? And whatever it’s deep underlying meaning, did I actually create that meaning, or did I just recognize it? The artist under this scenario is not a creator, but an illuminator, the speaker of existent truths recognized and delivered by the artist. It might be illuminated by a poem, a symphony, or a painting.
So, should I want to know deeply what that piece of art means, shouldn’t I explore the meaning of the truth exposed as opposed to limiting it to a cross-examination of the artist, who may have a lesser understanding of what he said than someone else?
i think any kind of training alters your mind, after all how else are you going to learn and apply the training? i have seen different kinds of music-makers that worked within their training and not much outside of that.
Unfortunately, that’s a silly response - the answer is yes, I want you to clarify your clearly vague poetry.
I can’t see anything in this quote myself.
To Hanover’s explication to you, that just seems objectively wrong. Yes, if you wrote the line, you are patently in the best position to elucidate/illuminate it. I cannot see that there’s anything to the argument being made.
Of course I agree that the artist is not the sole arbiter of meaning. My point was that art is made by an artist (“Love conquers all” may be a traditional adage with no known single artist). So it “comes” from him or her, whether he is aware of all possible meanings or not. That (In part) was the point of the Robert Frost anecdote. A poem cannot be translated into simpler terms. It’s meaning (or impact on the reader) comes from the literal meaning of the words, from their association with rhyme or rhythm, and from the impact the sounds make on the reader. Once the poem is read, it may have “meanings” of which the poet was unaware, or of which he was only subconsciously aware. The poem IS the meaning.
*Sigh
Likewise, I’ve denied your denial of the artist’s subjective perspective, so my opinion stands. 