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Is There A “Correct” Interpretation of a Work of Art?
Balancing the personal and contextual response
When someone sees a work of art, there are natural questions that many people ask.
What does it mean? What is it showing us? What is it about?
The dilemma I want to address here is: who is the best person to answer these questions? Is it the artist? Is it the art expert or historian? Or is it the viewer?
As visitors to art galleries we are sometimes encouraged to adopt a modern orthodoxy: that a work of art may be interpreted in any number of ways, and that it is the viewer who somehow “completes” the work through their own personal engagement and subjective association. In this way, the idea that a work of art has a single meaning conferred by the artist — there to be deciphered like a riddle — is thought of as elitist. A prohibitive limit on the ways in which works might be experienced.
It is an attractive idea, not least because it opens up art appreciation to the range of subjective perspectives that individuals can bring.
Undoubtedly, meaning in art accrues around personal responses, connections and reflections. In this way, a gallery space becomes a dynamic arena, where meaning unfolds as different visitors enter and offer their responses.
