The freedom of interpretation or the injustice of misinterpretation?

Basil, 9 months ago

Most interesting, Suzanne. I have recently been reading Terry Eagleton’s How to Read a Poem and it is most interesting, and ncludes a discussion of the role of the reader, and sociological aspects of writing and reading.

Kristy Lee, 9 months ago

Quote “but then isn’t that what makes art a beautiful thing???? Freedom to interpret as we will?” End Quote

For me, that is the beauty of art indeed. But then, I am utterly intrigued by interpretation and perception.

Still I do often wonder about the question you asked, “Are we doing the artist a disservice with our interpretations and impositions?” ...I’m not sure how I’d answer that.

And another question..

As an artist, are you more concerned with getting your own point, your own views, across? OR ..Are you interested in each persons individual insights into your work , whether similar to your own or totally off base from the original idea?

Do you write for yourself or your audience? And, do you have room for both?

Hmm..I’m full of questions now, Suzanne!!

Suzanne German, 9 months ago

Hi Kristy! Nice that popped in …...that is an interesting dilemma isn’t it?
The point of perspective…....and can they co-exist without annihilating the other? (A bit like a relationship with 2 strong personalities?!)

Suzanne :)

pauldrobertson, 9 months ago

Blake said ‘the eye, altering, alters all.” I LIKE Blake he was messed up and crazy like me. And i think Wittgenstein over-stated simple induction when he said,
“The limits of my language are the limits of my world.”
But these things ARE essential to philosophy, and philosophy is RIGHT in this sense. We cannot argue and ascend from a meagre understanding to replete knowledge without understanding each other. In this way we essentially need one another in order to understand, as much as we are able, the lives that we have. The moments that we steal.
Art may contain language, and language art.
But language is not art nor the reverse. They hardly represent inclusive sets.
Even though Ruskin was brilliant and his works represent a deep fissure struck into the opacity of symbols… and even though Jung took this to its next far more explicit state –
Neither of them share with us more than keys to locks that will open or remain fast against their skeletal spines: and this is contingent on the wild and endless freedom of the artist’s mind and its creations.
Besides. Jung was a dangerous idiot in almost everything else.
I disagree specifically with the idea that freedom to interpret as we will is what gives art its beauty. We find meaning within the words the works the paint the stone – but I believe that more than anything else this is due to our common humanity – the sympathetic resonance that sings within each of our hearts.
What we already share – shown and laid bare to us in a language that we can grasp only enough to make us ache.
Post modernism is a useful and descriptive tool, but semiotics do not and can never even begin to describe the whole…
SO – 1 can thought be damaged by perception? I am unsure what you mean.
There is cogito ergo sum BUT perception does not end thought though perhaps it does continuously change it.
Personally I like my own antipodes of Descartes:
If one were to have no sight, hearing, touch, taste and no sense of smell – and a tree falls on you in the forest, then –
does it really hit you?
To this first question, since I presuppose emotion to be encompassed by ‘thought’ then oh, oh yes. I wish I had never seen some of the horrors that have passed before me. Apart from that we must perceive to have anything before us for our thoughts to engage. How can we begin to understand a painting if we don’t LOOK AT IT?
I believe that all meaning can be lost in interpretation save that of the hand of artifice, which perhaps can be reckoned by all – this must, it MUST contain meaning even without any understanding of what that meaning may be – because human hands have wrought it with intent, with the sacrifice of time, with WORK.
2.
Do we do art a disservice with our interpretations?
A disservice?
I have never read an art critic who shouldn’t really have shut the fuck up and made himself more useful as a speed hump instead. So hell yeah. It CAN. But I do not believe that it MUST.

3.
Is there such a thing as freedom of interpretation?

Yes. It is called delusion.
Read something about Rothko or Damien Hurst. THERE you go. MAKING STUFF UP.
Applying meaning where it can be FOUND, to turn the worm against post modernism.

4.
Is it really an injustice? A misinterpretation?
Subjectivity… the ultimate governance and finite limit of our shared humanity…
From an individual’s POV cultural and linguistic interpretative influence is inevitable, certainly. The painting remains the same to other eyes, but here post modernism holds sway and we bring what we are and what we have learned and seen with us to the art before us.
The interpretation can change, but the object does not.
Unless you are talking about quantum mechanics but

LET’S NOT GO THERE RIGHT NOW.

Besides I don’t think photons etc qualify as art.

Then again… I tried assiduously to define what the word ‘art’ meant whilst I was being tortured by talentless gits in my own under-grad degree.

I eventually worked this out –

‘ART IS ANYTHING THAT ANYONE CALLS ART. EVER.’
- quoting myself.
(I left a whole lot of thoughts out of this comment so as to not write a critical novel.)

damn. 2 am. Should have been PAINTING!!

paul.

Suzanne German, 9 months ago

I don’t see language and art as being mutually exclusive…I don’t agree with your comment on Jung either….where you say:
opacity of symbols… and even though Jung took this to its next far more explicit state especialyl since you then go onto to describe Jung’s theory of the collective unconscious! ..in these lines:
_but I believe that more than anything else this is due to our common humanity – the sympathetic resonance that sings within each of our hearts. _ ??

but semiotics do not and can never even begin to describe the whole…
...The whole what exactly?? _

I didn’t say damaged by perception I implied and only questioningly by the way) – that pereption by the *audience if you like has the potential to re-arrange through its own interpretation the intended message(s)!

Of course I agree with Reality is what you think it is!....very basic philosophical conceptual theory…however we think, feel, belive, imagine – therefore we are!!! (a bit added on to Descartes’ theory of reality)...

I’m sorry that you’ve only encountered negative art critics! I have had the pleasure of more positive ones that have not reminded me of speed humps (As you put it)..

Now – where you say that freedom of interpretation is delusion – I want to remind you that you originally (in this commentary) indicated quite emphatically that, all art is subject to individual perception – My question is if you belive this to be so how can you attempt to separate it from interpretation?

Viz-a-viz: Perception and Interpretation (in the context of art appreciation) surely are inextricably connected!

I’ve enjoyed reading your critique / views and look forward to more no doubt! thanks!

Suzanne
interpretion of the viwer/audience – and it MUST (capitals yours I belive) be so!

Suzanne German, 9 months ago

Hi again…my commetn below has got a bit jumbled between scrolling up and down to read and then respond to parts of Paul’s comment….so I can / will clarify any parts that don’t make sense!
I’m not even sure how or why some lines ended up with lines through them! I didn’t intend that to happen as I did mean to say to Paul that I disagreed with his critcism of Jung and pointed out that from what I read he had begun to describe the Collective Unconscious – Jung’s theory.
The world could benefit from some of Jung’s open-mind/soul/spirit/ ness !!! But then I hold an eclectic approach to psychology, philosophy and the meanings and questions in life.

Suzanne

pauldrobertson, 9 months ago

from what i have learned of jung, he was a deeply insightful, intuitive and empathic individual.

who confused spirituality with fact and thus contaminated his genius with fiction.

this is cool fun. not had a chance to rant academically for a long time. i am gonna come back hehehe.

pleasure meeting you, basil, misskristy, and of course ms suzanna.

jung – mandalas… where exactly do they belong in the treatment of the chronically mentally ill?

i mean.

nice SHAPE.

but.

i like RHOMBOIDS.

think they would be eaqually useful as a psychiatric tool.

Suzanne German, 8 months ago

paulrobertson…the mandala is meant to represnt the centre or essence of the being/individual.
So…my question to you is:-

How do you describe your centre? Or what is the core of your being?
The answers to these questions may offer psychological insights…..if that is what you are looking for…you hold the questions and the answers to your ‘self’!

regards
Suzanne