3 ms·
This strikes me as interesting in terms of the question of how important artist intent is. It seems to me that for many pieces of abstract art it doesn't reall
by harimau777 4y ago
This strikes me as interesting in terms of the question of how important artist intent is.
It seems to me that for many pieces of abstract art it doesn't really matter which side the artist intended to be the top. It might matter if the orientation has an impact on the work's message (e.g. if the author intended abstract shapes at the top to in some way represent Heaven while those on the bottom represent earth). However, I'd suggest that "this is what the artist intended" is not on it's own enough to make the orientation important.
- mbg721 4y agoFor written works we often hear that analysis doesn't need to depend on the author's intent. Why shouldn't that also hold true for visual art?
- pessimizer 4y ago> Why shouldn't that also hold true for visual art? To answer that, we'd have to say more about why the meaning of a written work doesn't depend on the author's intent than "we often hear."
- harimau777 4y agoI'd say that the author's intent is only relevant to the question of what the author intended their work to mean. I don't see any reason it would be relevant to any other insights or significance that a reader gains from the text. It's similar to how the fact that the cat command was intended to be used to concatenate files is irrelevant to it's more common use to dump a file to stdout.
- Xylakant 4y agoThe analysis of visual art does not depend on the authors intent any more than for written work. But changing the orientation of a piece would better be compared to changing the order of the words than analyzing the work. Hanging it upside down changes the work, not your analysis of it.