- I used to follow politics rabidly. It was always hard to figure out just what news filtered through to your average Joe. Now the time that I used to allot for following politics is used for blogging. So I have no idea what’s going on. If you’re a political nut and want to understand how much the average person knows, just ask me! I am that person!
- Tornadoes headed our way! Hope everyone stays safe and has power!
- Open thread question: Is there a correct interpretation of a work of art? If so, are the author’s intentions relevant? I have an opinion on this one, but would love to hear what you guys think.
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I’m from tornado country, and have many memories of hunkering down and waiting for the radio to announce the warnings had lifted. I hope everyone in your area stays safe.
I don’t think there’s a “correct” interpretation of a work of art, but some are more well-thought-out than others. I thought “Sideways” was a movie about two schmucks, which was clearly the “wrong” interpretation according to the nation’s critics. (I stand by it anyway.) That said, I think the author’s intentions can play a part in informing another’s appreciation for the work.
No, they’re schmucks, all right.
Glorious schmucks, though. Like Nick Cage in Raising Arizona or The Dude in The Big Lebowski.
Schumcks with a purpose, and that purpose is Schmucktitude.
The Dude wasn’t a schmuck. He abided. Walter Sobchak, though? *That’s* a schmuck, and one of the most glorious ones in film history.
Oh, I would never put the schmucks from “Sideways” with Hi from “Raising Arizona.” Hi had more character in his little finger than the sad sack and the lecher put together.
Stay safe!
I’m strongly against the notion of a ‘correct’ interpretation of a work of art (of course, I’m also strongly in the ‘there is no possible objective criteria possible to judge or rank artwork’ camp so there’s that).
The author’s intentions are vitally important, but knowing anything about them should be complementary, not necessary to appreciate/interpret/criticize said work.
Tornadoes! Time to go sit on the porch watching for them.
There may be the interpretation of a work of art that the artist would like you to have–that’s the only thing that could theoretically be correct. But once you put a piece of art out there for the public to look at, folks are going to come up with their own interpretations, and that’s where real “meaning” kicks in, because a work of art can’t “mean” anything to me except what meaning I impute to it, which the artist can’t control. So my interpretation of Star Wars is that it’s about George Lucas’s inability to deal well with the emotional trauma of middle school. I don’t think that’s incorrect.
Is there a correct interpretation of a work of art? If so, are the author’s intentions relevant?
It seems to me that while it’s not like getting a math problem wrong, it does seem like there’s a fuzzy “yeah, that’s in the ballpark” correct kinda interpretation and, as you get farther from that, you find yourself in a fuzzy “no, that’s not even wrong” territory.
I mean, it’s possible to interpret Lord of the Rings as Tolkien’s attempts to process WWI and WWII. Tolkien, of course, said that that was not what he was doing. I don’t know that such an interpretation would necessarily be wrong… and, as such, the author’s intentions are only tangentially relevant.
Then again, on another level, much art is like a Rorschach test. “What is this?” “It’s a hamburger.” “What is this?” “It’s a salad bar.” “What is this?” “It’s a steak dinner.”
Is the person wrong in any of his answers? On one level, yes. They’re just inkblots. On another, no. There is no right answer and the inkblots are really a mirror… and he’s unconsciously telling us what he sees in it.
All that to say: when (or, I should say, *WHERE*) art is a mirror, there are no wrong interpretations. Where it is not a mirror, however? If the artist is saying something and it’s consistently misunderstood (according to the artist, anyway), then the artist has a disconnect. If the majority of the artees (is that a word? It is now, anyway) get what the artist was intending, then if another person shows up and misses the point completely, we can probably guess that the disconnect is on the end of this particular person.
“I mean, it’s possible to interpret Lord of the Rings as Tolkien’s attempts to process WWI and WWII. Tolkien, of course, said that that was not what he was doing. I don’t know that such an interpretation would necessarily be wrong… and, as such, the author’s intentions are only tangentially relevant.”
Do you think “intention” has to be conscious? (Perhaps by definition “intentions” are “intentional”….but I wonder.) In other words, as you suggest, it might not be wrong to say that Tolkien was processing the wars.
Well, it’s also true that an artist can be doing a dozen things at once. He could be intending to make a breathbreaking beauty of heartbreaking work or something. He could be intending to make a little money. He could be intending to tell a story about good versus evil and while evil is tempting, it’s better to be good. He could be rebelling against his father.
None of these exclude the others.
All this stuff about intentions — do they have to be conscious, what if they co-occur with other intentions — is discussed a lot in the literature on this.
I suppose that that is what editors are for… They turn books from autobiographies into biographies.
There may not be a limited set of “correct” interpretations of art, but there are certainly incorrect interpretations. One can debate whether or not the Lord of the Rings is (in part) an attempt to process the world wars. But it’s definitely not an attempt to process the fall of communism.
I happened to stumble across Asimov’s Axiom the other day and I’m delighted to have an opportunity to quote it.
“When people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.”
In this same way, I suspect that it’s possible to have a “relativity of wrong” kinda thing going on with interpretation.
“Is there a correct interpretation of a work of art? If so, are the author’s intentions relevant?”
I think it depends on how you define “interpretation”. Often times, we use that word to describe an attempt to understand the author’s intent. In that case then, yes, there is a correct interpretation and, yes, the author’s intent is not only relevant, but the driving force. As an example, if I write a book that has a somewhat ambiguous ending that implies, but does not explicitly says, a character dies, but it was my intention to leave just enough information that an astute reader can find out that he did, indeed, die, there is a correct way to interpret the ending of that book: the guy died because, I, the other, intended him, too.
Of course, that is not the only way to use the word “interpret”…
That’s a good point. To the extent I think about it at all, I think that “interpret” is more of a discourse: it’s about the constructions we put on something and what we choose to take from it. Some constructions are more useful for some purposes, or more purposes, than other constructions, but they are not therefore more “correct.”
Yeah, so there are playful interpretations (like, a Freudian interpretation of Hamlet). The hardcore sense of interpretation is roughly what is meant by the work. People argue that that must mean artists’ intentions, others say you can draw all the meaning from text alone.
I think a lot of this has to do with framing…
You’ll sometimes have an “interpreter” say, “I think the artist was trying to…” or “I think the artist meant…” In that case, the artist’s intent absolutely matters and there can be a right or wrong interpretation.
Other folks will say, “This piece makes me feel sad…” or “This piece seems to offer a commentary on relationships…” In those cases, I don’t know that the artist’s intent really matters or that someone can be right or wrong, since so much of the “interpretation” is based on what the viewer brings to the table and, thus, it is inherently subjective.
1. What’s the deal with “who you’d most like to have a beer with?”
2. Yikes! Stay safe! Boil up water for a hot buttered rum.
3. Yes: mine.
You’re welcome.
1. I have no idea. I don’t want anybody I like having beers with to be in control of the button.
2. So far so good!
3. Awesome.
It’s not really a button, if that makes you feel any better. (more like a deck of cards)
I hate tornadoes. Growing up in Denver, we got a share–probably far less than our share, but a share nonetheless–of tornado warnings, and they frightened me a lot. One thing I like about Chicago is that for some reason, tornadoes don’t seem to want to form here, at least not in the city. So stay safe.
I generally don’t wade too deep into whether some interpretations are correct or not, but the question of authorial (or creator) intention intrigues me. I don’t really have an answer except to say my sense is that the intention probably must (or usually does….?….I’m not sure how devoted I am to my own claim) command some importance.
I have little direct justification. But here are few issues I suppose one would have to grapple with in order to address your question, but I”m afraid that most of these issues are just rephrasings of your original question:
1. To what degree is the created a manifestation of the creator’s intentions and to what degree can it be said to be independent of those intentions?
2. Does the created have a life of its own after creation, in a similar way that James suggested above that once a creation is out there in the public, the public (or publics) will assign or impose whatever meaning they want.
3. Does the created fit into some sort of tradition of which the creator might not be aware? Is a sculpture made in 1899, for example, somehow indicative of current artistic trends even if the sculptor might not be consciously aware of them? Do the created or attributes of the created involve symbols or inadvertently invoke archetypes that exist independent of the creator or that exist in a way beyond the creator’s control (whether we think such archetypes are culturally or socially determined or part of a psychic experience common to humanity)?
4. How much can the creator even control the created, either the development or the final product or its reception? To give an example, I used to write poetry for open mic performance (not necessarily good poetry, but I’m proud of some of it), and almost all of the poems I wrote I believed that they somehow had an existence beyond myself. It was almost as if they were waiting to be written and I was the hand that wrote them. Yet they were also mine–maybe in the way that in Star Trek Deep Space Nine, Judxia was part of what Dax was, but Dax also existed independently of her….forced analogy?
But I ramble (and drink). I hope you have a safe Friday!
Again, all this stuff comes up a lot in the literature.
Why bother to interpret art at all? Shouldn’t it be enough to experience art? Ceci n’est pas une oeuvre d’art.
For many people, (well for me), understanding enhances the experience. And (often)(?) necessary if the art was created in a different cultural milieu than the person who is trying to appreciate the art.
You may have a point there. I’m not sure about the necessity of translating from other cultural milieus: somehow those Impressionist artists managed to find beauty in the Japanese prints which served as wrapping and stuffing for the porcelain wares arriving in Europe. Those prints were so much junk to the Japanese, not much different than the teeny bopper posters on every kid’s wall.
Here’s an example I’ve used when discussing this with my students. It’s from Emma by Jane Austen (and it is from Emma that I borrowed Woodhouse for my pseudonym):
“To restrain him as much as might be, by her own manners, [Emma] was immediately preparing to speak with exquisite calmness and gravity of the weather and the night; but scarcely had she begun, scarcely had they passed the sweep-gate and joined the other carriage, than she found her subject cut up – her hand seized – her attention demanded, and Mr. Elton actually making violent love to her…”
In Jane Austen’s time, to make love usually meant something like declaring your love or whispering sweet nothings or acting lovey-dovey. What if someone reading this in the present day didn’t know that and thought that Mr. Elton sexually assaulted Emma? Would that be correct or incorrect as an interpretation?
That would be an incorrect interpretation, just as it would be incorrect to interpret that first sentence to mean that “gravity” meant things in the carriage were unusually heavy. It’s not so much a question of interpretation as basic understanding, and is not all that different from my using my rudimentary medical Spanish to translate Cervantes. I’m going to end up with a story that is simply not even the same as the one written by the author.
If someone thought Mr. Elton had raped Emma, he wouldn’t be reading Jane Austen’s novel. He’d be reading a story very like “Emma,” but with a totally incongruous rape scene jarringly interrupting the action and then never being mentioned again.
So he’d be reading Twilight?
I understand that there’s a new interpretation out called “Twilight of the Elites”.
(In New Moon of the Elites, we meet the werewolves.)
So long as the elites don’t fishing sparkle in the sunlight.
(and it is from Emma that I borrowed Woodhouse for my pseudonym)
And here I’ve been thinking of you as Aunt Dahlia …
First I’m “mature.” Now I’m Aunt Dahlia.
I’m giving it all up and getting sixteen cats.
It has upsides.
That should be: “I’ll get a husband who collects silver cow-creamers, a genius French chef, and a self-published magazine called Milady’s Boudoir“.
Is there a correct interpretation of a work of art? If so, are the author’s intentions relevant?
The first question: no.
The second question: only if you think the authors intentions are constitutive of the work of art. I stand firm in thinking that a work of art (Art!!) has meaning insofar as it stands alone and invites people to understand it.
Third question answer: if you mean one correct interpretation, then “No.” However, there is what we might call a limited field of correct interpretations that is constituted in part by the author’s intentions but not reducible to them. If someone wants to disagree with an author about the meaning of a work, I say go for it, but support your interpretation with the text.