Do an artist's intentions matter?

[Darin Boville]

A nice little article in the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/15/bo...av=bottom-well

We've discussed this sort of thing here before. My own views are closer to that of the first writer, after having explored the other side in younger days.

My favorite line, and the most revealing of what I see to be the error of the second author's argument is where he writes:

"What Shakespeare himself thought about Hamlet is unknowable, and really it doesn’t matter; the words on the page constitute his final statement." [My emphasis added.]

Which sort of says to me that certain academics are so language focused that they simply lose site of the art form itself. They don't feel it. Not really. Shakespeare's final statement surely occurred somewhere on stage, sadly unrecorded. Not in the text, cobbled together from various sources after his death. Whether Shakespeare intended Hamlet to be a "conscience-stricken intellectual" or a "victim of the Oedipus complex" would have been, I think, quite clear from the performance.

--Darin

[invisibleflash]

Sorry, I got ADD. I couldn't get through all that BS.

If you want to give a short easy to understand summation with examples of your question I will give you my 2 cents.

[Pawlowski6132]

I think an understanding of an artists intentions is insightful. It helps in evaluating a piece to judge whether you think his expression was successful.

If you are interpreting a piece and making a personal connection, it doesn't matter. But, it's not fair to attribute any of your conclusions back to the artist.

[dasBlute]

Intentions completely matter. Yet, we live in a world of imperfect knowledge, often uncertain enough of our own intentions let alone someone else. That we know -or at least hope- that there is purpose, method, and deep understanding behind art is what keeps us looking, and reading.... longing to bridge the gaps between us.

[Alan Gales]

Intentions can be interesting and give you insight into the photographer but the photograph still looks the same whether you know the intention behind it or not.

I do admit that occasionally I appreciate a piece more after I know the artist's intentions. Maybe that's the artist in me.

[Jim Galli]

Of course not.

[mdarnton]

If the artist's intentions matter so much that he thinks he needs you to know them to appreciate his work, then he'd better put them somewhere on the artwork. Otherwise, no. The whole point of art is communication; if the artist can't communicate from within his art, I personally think he's a pretty poor artist.

This question of the surroundings of art, the background of the artist, etc, in regard to the product, if I remember correctly, is a new one in criticism, an idea that popped up in criticism within the last century. With that in mind, I'm betting that Shakespeare probably never had the idea that you needed to know more of his work than what he put there on the stage for you to see, so I suspect he might find the question interesting but irrelevant.

[Taija71A]

___

No!

"Art never expresses anything but itself."
~~ Oscar Wilde. ~~

_________

[jp]

I skimmed it. I don't really care about what some authors I haven't read might have meant.

If the intentions in art turn out to be some sort of "I never would have guessed" backstory, I supposed they haven't mattered much. I think it is possible to integrate intentions and artistic output if done methodically to make something that matters a little more. (eg. pro-environment landscape photography or documentary work). A possible pitfall is if intentions were vague and should have been more evident in intention such as when if people, who should know, can't tell if a photo was meant to be a classic figure study full of symbolism or something homoerotic and it becomes a rorschach test rather than a means of communication.

[Darin Boville]

>>If the artist's intentions matter so much that he thinks he needs you to know them to appreciate his work, then he'd better put them somewhere on the artwork.<<

But I think the point of that side of the argument isn't whether artists succeed or fail in putting their intensions in the work in any discernible way, the point is that it really doesn't matter.

--Darin