Tuesday, 22 March 2022
At only around 130 pages, Interpreting Art, by Sam Rose is a slim volume. Nevertheless it packs a significant punch. Reading it was, for me, both a disturbing and enlightening experience. Ostensibly an exploration of how we can see and look at art with fresh eyes, Rose's monograph is an examination of the conventions and trends that exist when writing about art. Although not an academic, I am a writer who is keen on art and consider myself reasonably knowledgeable about art in general and, more specifically, Art History, Art Theory and Art Criticism. The names of artists, their works and those of the art critics Rose mentions are, therefore, all familiar to me, as is the terminology Rose uses.
What surprised me most, shocked me, even, is Rose's claim that over the course of art history critics have increasingly come to separate the artist from his work. The painting or sculpture, etc, he believes, is viewed and judged without taking into consideration who the artist is, his background or life experience. In other words, those critics who prefer to label works and/or categorise them into groups, in terms of content, medium or other means, increasingly deem the artist himself irrelevant. One can only imagine how someone like Pablo Picasso (1881 - 1973) or Jackson Pollock (1912 - 1956) would have felt about that. Women artists are, of course, another matter entirely. Until as late as the middle of the twentieth century, they were accustomed to being ignored; deemed unable to contribute anything of value artistically or economically. Lee Krasner (1908 - 1984), married to Jackson Pollock was a prime example of this. An artist in her own right, it was only after her husband's death in a car crash that the quality of her work was recognised and she was given solo exhibitions.
There are exceptions, but these are rare. Arguably, the sculptor, Barbara Hepworth (1903 - 1975) and the painter Wilhelmina Barns-Graham (1912 - 2004) are amongst the finest examples of British female artists who were able to make a living through their art, but there is no denying that neither found it easy. These days, thankfully, women artists are as respected as their male counterparts. Tracey Emin (b.1963) being just one case in point. Furthermore, there will be many more up-and-coming female artists graduating from art schools around the world in the next few years who, in our current enlightened society, will find their path to artistic success less onerous than those of previous generations.
Early on in the history of art it was different. The artist was invariably recognised as the executor of his work. As far back as 1550 Giorgio Vasari (1511 - 1574), in his multi-volume study, Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects tells of how the artists thought about their work, how they executed it, the types of paint they used, and so on. By the later 1700s this transparency was beginning to wane. Academics and those writing about art started using 'language of conscious intent for abstract notions far beyond the artistic choices directly observed in artworks', as Rose puts it in his Introduction (p.1).
Rose likens this shift towards placing less focus on the modern artist than his work and separating him from his creative canon to the theories of Roland Barthes (1915 - 1980) and Michel Foucault (1926 - 1984) when they questioned the role of writers. For both it was a straining against the confines of Structuralism which states that there must be a relationship between things to enable them to be placed in context and properly comprehended. Personally, I think that although it may have been their intention to try to force a distance between writers and how their work was perceived by the reading public of the day, Barthes and Foucault were battling against a norm at a time when both author and text tended to be regarded in tandem. Furthermore, the stance they take in arguing their cases suggests to me that they were not sufficiently convinced by their own theories, as I will attempt to explain below.
In his essay, Death of the Author (published in 1968) Barthes adopts the Marxist perspective which states the author is a modern construct, derived from capitalist ideology that recognises the part a writer plays in the wider system of ownership, property and privilege, ie. the narrative. The author, as its owner, Barthes states, controls how his work is interpreted. Foucault's discourse in turn, titled What is an Author?, is essentially a response to Barthes' essay in which he says that in conceiving the author as the source of his narrative, its meaning is confined to the author’s intention. In this way Foucault is supporting Barthes' capitalist theory.
Some artists, of course, acknowledged that once they had finished a painting and it left their studio to be put to public scrutiny, they who had created the work, became of secondary importance or were sometimes actively ignored. Henri Matisse (1869 - 1954), for example, famously wrote: ‘He who dedicates himself to painting must start by cutting out his tongue’ .
Rose continues by investigating how we see and write about art in the twenty-first century. He explains that an artist's written personal statement about his creative vision and practice has become standard within artistic circles and is expected in the presenting of work. He sets out three principles for interpreting a piece of visual art. Firstly, Rose says, the artist has to relinquish ownership of his work. It often comes after several re-workings when he has decided he can do no more and that a piece is finally complete. Secondly, it has to be recognised that the work produced is the result of a combination of both deliberate and unconscious motivation and execution. The artwork the viewer sees is, therefore, a record of the artist's mental and physical facilities working together in the process of creating. Thirdly, 'the artist works not just with the eyes, but for the eyes', as Rose writes (p.19). By this the author means that the artist not only uses his imagination in making his work, but he also has to be able to visualise how it will appear to his audience, both immediately following its release to the public and to viewers of the future. How will his artwork be regarded ten, twenty, fifty, a hundred years after its creation?
In discussing the context of art Rose shows, without actually making the comparison, that there is considerable overlap between the analysing and interpretation of art and literary criticism. The importance of context applies in both disciplines. The time and place in which an artwork was produced or in which a piece of fiction is set provides a historical backdrop and reference point. Considering what was going on in the wider world at that period supplies still further insight to a work's intent and, perhaps, to the artist's or author's own mindset, socio-political inclinations and outlook.
A further comparison between the criticism of art and literature lies in what Rose calls depth interpretation which, in literature, would be termed close reading. In art, but also in literature, this involves 'a searching for the hidden or repressed rather than the straightforward or obvious' (p.97). In order to bring out such features in practice, Rose writes, 'depth interpretation often favours playful and associative moves that would not be deemed legitimate or plausible in standard historical reconstruction' (ibid).
Blackboxing is a scientific term denoting the instance when the technology and effort involved in bringing about the success of an experiment or invention suddenly becomes invisible as a result of it working. First coined by the French philosopher, anthropologist and sociologist, Bruno Latour (b.1947), the word has found its way into the art world to describe the invisibility of the creative process, how it is largely unconscious or accidental in nature and, therefore, open to controversy. Rose views blackboxing as a sub-character in the story of an artwork and 'a driver of complexity because of the role it plays in additive interpretation' (p.77).
Rose advises artists to make artworks 'as complex as possible’ (p.71). He believes this will enrich an artist's work and help audiences feel more connected to it and to the artist himself. Personally, I would say this is a rather crass generalisation. Surely it depends on the viewers? Some may find complex pieces more interesting, but there are also plenty who feel alienated by art they don't understand. Undoubtedly it's about finding the right balance.
In closing I would like to stress that this essay is not a book review in the usual sense. These are my own thoughts and ideas deriving from having read Sam Rose's book which is well written and, I believe, a useful addition to the existing oeuvre on writing and appreciating art. Even where I question and comment on the assertions Rose makes does not mean I am criticising his theories. I am merely putting forward a few tentative doubts, about some of the notions he advocates. That said, I do feel that there are some gaping anomalies between a few of the statements he makes and my own studies around art and art history. But in the end, Rose is the academic and art historian. I am simply an art enthusiast looking for enlightenment and hoping to further my existing knowledge if I can. Rose's book has certainly given me plenty to ponder on.
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REFERENCES
ROSE, Sam ~ Interpreting Art (UCL Press)
Format: Hardback £40.00
Publication Date: February 10, 2022
Size: 234 × 156 mm
136 Pages
38 colour illustrations
Copyright: © 2022
ISBN: 9781800081796
Publication: February 10, 2022
Series: Spotlights
also available free to download as an open-access publication
https://www.uclpress.co.uk/collections/ro_homepage_products/products/184908
Barthes, R. (1968) ‘The Death of the Author’, in Image, Music, Text, pp.142–8.
New York: Hill & Wang, 1978
Foucault, M. ‘What is an Author?’, in Aesthetics, Method, and Epistemology, pp.205–22.
New York: New Press, 1998
Matisse, H. Jazz. Munich: R. Piper & Co, 1960
Vasari, Giorgio (tr. Gaston du C. de Vere) Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects. New York: Random House, Inc. (Modern Library Classics), 2007
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