QCQ#3- Against Interpretation
http://employees.csbsju.edu/dbeach/beautytruth/Sontag-Against%20Interpretation.pdf
Thus, interpretation is not (as most people assume) an absolute value, a gesture of mind situated in some timeless realm of capabilities. Interpretation must itself be evaluated, within a historical view of human consciousness. In some cultural contexts, interpretation is a liberating act. It is a means of revising, of transvaluing, of escaping the dead past. In other cultural contexts, it is reactionary, impertinent, cowardly, stifling.
In a culture whose already classical dilemma is the hypertrophy of the intellect at the expense of energy and sensual capability, interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art.
Real art has the capacity to make us nervous. By reducing the work of art to its content and then interpreting that, one tames the work of art. Interpretation makes art manageable, comformable.
But it should be noted that interpretation is not simply the compliment that mediocrity pays to genius. It is, indeed, the modern way of understanding something, and is applied to works of every quality.
It doesn’t matter whether artists intend, or don’t intend, for their works to be interpreted.
It is always the case that interpretation of this type indicates a dissatisfaction (conscious or unconscious) with the work, a wish to replace it by something else.
Interpretation does not, of course, always prevail. In fact, a great deal of today’s art may be understood as motivated by a flight from interpretation. To avoid interpretation, art may become parody. Or it may become abstract. Or it may become (“merely”) decorative. Or it may become non-art.
Abstract painting is the attempt to have, in the ordinary sense, no content; since there is no content, there can be no interpretation. Pop Art works by the opposite means to the same result; using a content so blatant, so “what it is,” it, too, ends by being uninterpretable.
It also perpetuates the very distinction between form and content which is, ultimately, an illusion.
Ideally, it is possible to elude the interpreters in another way, by making works of art whose surface is so unified and clean, whose momentum is so rapid, whose address is so direct that the work can be…just what it is.
What is needed, first, is more attention to form in art. If excessive stress on content provokes the arrogance of interpretation, more extended and more thorough descriptions of form would silence. What is needed is a vocabulary—a descriptive, rather than prescriptive, vocabulary—for forms.
Equally valuable would be acts of criticism which would supply a really accurate, sharp, loving description of the appearance of a work of art. This seems even harder to do than formal analysis.
Transparence is the highest, most liberating value in art-and in criticismtoday. Transparence means experiencing the luminousness of the thing in itself, of things being what they are.
What is important now is to recover our senses. We must learn to see more, to hear more, to feel more.
Our task is not to find the maximum amount of content in a work of art, much less to squeeze more content out of the work than is already there. Our task is to cut back content so that we can see the thing at all. The aim of all commentary on art now should be to make works of art-and, by analogy, our own experience-more, rather than less, real to us. The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means.
Why do we look for meaning that possibly isn’t there when we look at a work of art? I guess to just find what that work means to each of us, individually. I personally like to leave some work for the audience to find their own meaning in the art. But then looking for a certain meaning just because it will better fit my religion or my views, I find it to be absurd. Does having that work fit my views make it the only way that it is acceptable?
Does looking for so much hidden meaning reduce the value of the art as what it is? In the article it is stated that real art has the capacity to make us nervous. Which reminds me of a saying, “art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.” Our nature causes us to be afraid of things unknown. I will take a gander and say that this is why we feel the need to find a meaning behind an artwork that makes us comfortable.
Looking at art for its objective value is just as important as looking at its subjective value. What is the work literally saying versus what meaning is it portraying. With abstract art we are now pulling away from finding so much meaning and being forced to accept the art for what it is. Its objective value. We are being forced to reinterpret art, by not interpreting it at all.
Does having that work fit my views make it the only way that it is acceptable?
Does looking for so much hidden meaning reduce the value of the art as what it is?
