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The Intentional Fallacy, Against Interpretation And Meaning In Art

Jun 27, 2016
by Caroline Miller
"Just Read It", Andy Warhol, Buried Giant, Kazuo Ishiguro, Rochelle Gurstein, Susan Sontag, Susan Stoner, W(h)ither the New Sensibility, what is art?
2 Comments

In 2014, I wrote about the Intentional Fallacy, a term of literary criticism. (6/5/14)   The theory states that to understand a work of art, nothing is relevant except the piece itself.  Knowledge of the artist’s childhood or what he or she ate for breakfast has no bearing on interpretation.  As the artist is incapable of being fully conscious of the influences that affect a work, speculation about those influences serves  no purpose.

Susan Sontag, an influential art and film critic, now deceased,  wrote two seminal essays that took the concept farther: The New Sensibility and Against Interpretation.  In these, she explained works, like Andy Warhol’s Campbell soup can, have no meaning except to force the viewer to pay attention to the object itself.  The experience is all.   But, as essayist Rochelle Gurstein points out, if the object is the experience, then all experience is art.  What about the table upon which the soup can stands?  Or the entire kitchen?    (“W(h)ither the New Sensibility,” by Rochelle Gurstein, The Baffler, no 31, pg. 149.) 

Having majored in philosophy, these questions are familiar to me, so I don’t get sucked into the dilemma.  With or without the artist’s intention, defining art is impossible, so I’ve fallen back on the novice’s declaration:  “ I know what art  is when I see it.”  Certainly, I am suspicious of Sontag’s view.   The object is not all there is.   The object is the means by which the artist sends a message to the viewer.  What occurs between the creator and the audience is akin to the gap between  Michelangelo’s God as he reaches out with a finger to imbue Adam with life.   Art lies in the gap, the mystical attempt at communion in a world where personal history colors what we observe and makes absolute communication impossible.  Call art  a leap of faith between the sender and the receiver, the hope that some level of understanding survives the void and makes a connection, however imperfect. 

fingers and ripples in a pond

Courtesy of www.flickr.com

In a recently taped edition of Just Read It, my co-host, Susan Stoner, disagreed with my assessment that  Kazuo Ishiguro’s Buried Giant Is a work of art.    She found the plot simplistic and banal.  That the story is simple, I agreed.  It is simple in the way a seed is both simple yet capable of complex expression as a flowers or a tree.   My friend frowned at my words and her reaction set me to wondering if I might be imposing, rather than deriving meaning.  Was I, like the naked king’s subjects, unwilling to admit I saw no clothes?

Susan and I continued our debate well after the camera stopped rolling.  That alone, in  my lexicon, is hint enough that the book had merit.  Though it affected us in different ways, it did affect us, setting our little grey cells working.  Perhaps that is the intention of art, after all: to dip our fingers into the surface of a still pond and set the ripples flowing.

 

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2 Comments
  1. P Anna Johnson June 27, 2016 at 9:35 am Reply
    How does one view the Just Read It discussions?
    • Caroline Miller June 27, 2016 at 9:53 am Reply
      We are far out in our shows, Anna. The "Buried Giant" discussion was taped in June but will not appear until about June of next year. To stay current with our discussions, I encourage you to sign up for regular notifications at the YouTube site. A new program is published about every two months. Actually we tape 8 programs a year, which keeps us pretty busy along with our other activities. So, I recommend that you subscribe if you want to stay current. Otherwise, I usually post a notice when a new program is up on the news feed on Facebook. The novel, "We Need New Names," will be up as of July 1. For anyone interested in reaching the site to look at past editions of "Just Read It," or to subscribe: https://www.booksbycarolinemiller.com/carolines-video-vault/

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Contact Caroline at

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Portland, Oregon author Caroline Miller had distinguished careers as an educator, union president, elected official and artist/advocate.

Her play, Woman on the Scarlet Beast, was performed at the Post5 Theatre, Portland, OR, January/February 2015

Caroline published a serialized novelette, Marie Eau-Claire, on the website, The Colored Lens.  She also published the story Gustav Pavel,  a parable about ordinary lives, choice and alternate potential, on the website Fixional.co.

Caroline has published five novels

  • Getting Lost To Find Home
  • Ballet Noir
  • Trompe l’Oeil
  • Gothic Spring
  • Heart Land

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