Who needs the artist? (Rough)

In general, I favor a style of interpretation that subjugates the author's intended meaning of a work in favor of the meaning that the work expresses itself. It seems that this point of view would be noxious to most artists, because it excludes them from the loop of their own art, but I believe that in most cases the artists intention is the true meaning of the artwork. To give an overly simplistic example, when a friend says "I will be at Franklin at 5:30 if you want to meet me there", his intention can be inferred from his statement, but there is little reason to go that far; the meaning of the words themselves explain all that is necessary to understand the intention. This sort of reasoning generally holds for more complex works as well; the artist creates intentionally, and the meaning will almost always therefore be derived from his intention.

This solves the dilemma that might result from ignorance of an artist's intentions. If the intentions were necessary to understand a work, the artist would need to write an essay explaining every one of their creations and justifying their ideas. If they didn't, they would not be creating a full work of art. (This is assuming a fairly conservative definition of art that says that art is intended to express a thought or emotion.) In fact, one might argue, albeit rather weakly, that such a theory of interpretation leads to infinite regress. If an artwork is intended to express an artists intentions, and the artist must explain his intentions in order for the artwork to be complete, the explanation is part of the work. He then has to write a new explanation for this new artwork, and an explanation for the artwork this constitutes, ad infinitum. To avoid this paradox, it seems that the artwork must be able to exist on its own, without necessarily being explained by the artist's intentions.

What then do we do about O'Keefe's painting "Black Iris", a painting that seems extremely sexual, but whose connotations she always denied? It seems that such a theory completely negates her opinion in favor of the uneducated, sex-crazed masses, who don't know what the painting is "really about". And it does. I admit that. I think with its complexly manifold surfaces, its sensual line, and the mysterious negative space in its center, the painting definitely communicates something sexual and even vaginal. Even if O'Keefe did not intend those associations, how can we say they are not there? They seem so apparent, and don't take any outside knowledge to understand (except possibly a cursory familiarity with female anatomy). Why are they less real than O'Keefe's intended meaning, which is not as obvious in the painting and requires outside elucidation? If we take that point of view, it seems that Black Iris is a bad artwork, because it does not communicate its point. But it seems meaningful, and I would like to call it good. If that requires a theory of meaning that ignores the author's intentions, so be it.

(The above was for a class in the Philosophy of Art. We had to write an online discussion about the relationship between intention and meaning. I have some more stuff to say about what interpretation does, and about the O-Word [Over-thinking] and how much I hate it, but I don't have time now. Maybe later.)

(Or now, the next day, instead of doing homework)

Another important reason meaning should not be necessarily 'intentional' is that intention implies consciousness of action, and I am sure most artists don't do everything with a specific meaning in mind. They must often simply have good instincts that lead them to create things that are extremely aesthetically significant. A painter does not have to have a plan for every brush stroke; she just has to paint something that she feels and intuits to be meaningful and worthwhile, and it might have some significance that she could not have intended. Likewise, scholars often read literature as though the author intended a divine meaning to rest in each word they wrote. I can't believe that anyone could be so skilled and foreward-thinking, but I don't criticize this style of interpretation. A good author has an ear and a sense for what words belong where, and each word contributes to the larger whole, even if they did not intend. After all, what is an artwork but a collection of brushstrokes or words, and the meaning develops from such small items.

It may have become apparent that I have rather different ideas of the purpose of interpretation than many other people, especially non-students of literature. It seems to me that most people think that a work of art is complete and sacred unto itself, and critics project their own ideas onto the poor defenseless text, suffocating it and eventually crushing all of the life out of it with their convictions. I don't deny that that is sometimes the case, but these people sorely misrepresent what interpretation can be, just like Nickelback (oh, poor Chad Kroeger, everyone's scapegoat) does not give a very good idea of what rock music can be.

I think Oscar Wilde best explained what criticism can be in his preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray. He said that "the critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things". In the preface, Wilde goes on to deny that artworks can have meaning, but this idea is potentially debunked by the rest of the book, and I don't think we would be wrong to consider the critic "he who can translate...the meaning of beautiful things". Artworks can have meaning even before they are explicated; you can feel something about a painting without verbalizing what it is you feel. The critic, the interpreter, takes this feeling and explains, draws out its significance, and tries to understand its place in the world without changing it. He is like an alchemist, melting down a precious metal and extracting its quintessence to be studied and cataloged.

This idea is my heart speeds with fury in my breast whenever I hear the word "over-think" thrown around. It's not a useless word, of course, but it is used indiscriminately and wantonly to assail the poor interpreter wherever he hides. Many people think that any attempt to understand the details or meaning of an artwork, to try to put the author's ideas into words he did not write, is 'over-thinking', an apparently capital crime that should be punished as such. If a psychologist noticed that a character manifested every symptom of a certain mental disorder, but the author denied that he had had such a disorder in mind when constructing the character, the shrink would be run out of town by a mob if he attempted to stand by his ideas. But why should he, if his observations were accurate and conducted with due consideration for the character's position within the work. Couldn't this book then be thought of, in addition to its other meanings, as a new way of thinking about this disorder?

Of course, such analysis without regard for context is pernicious. The prime is Freud's Oedipal reading of Hamlet, for which there is little or no direct evidence in the play. It is certainly true that Hamlet is uncannily obsessed with his mother's sexuality, and it was sharp of Freud to draw attention to this strangeness. But he reasons chiefly based on these small details to erect a grand structure of psychoanalysis that is not supported by the rest of the play, or particularly constructive to its interpretation. Over-thinking is certainly possible. But a few prominent bad apples need not spoil the whole bunch.