Teens/adults - Lesson 3: How to look at “difficult art”
Some art and objects are “easy” to interpret the same way that some music, books, and movies are “easy.” That doesn’t make them better or worse than “difficult” works, more meaningful or less meaningful—they’re merely different artistic approaches to creative ideas.
This distinction has always existed in art, but especially throughout the last century, the divide has grown between works that seem less challenging to interpret and more challenging. As a consequence, viewers of art have frequently fallen into heated arguments about the purpose of art itself, its audience, and its methods.
What are we to do with “difficult” art? How can we interpret it?
In a 1931 essay, “Why Is the New Art So Hard to Understand?”, German philosopher Theodor W. Adorno wrote about Modern art movements that grew out of World War I. He described the breakdown of society and the reaction of its artists to a world they found shocking and irreconcilable to what they had known before. He wrote, “The shock that accompanied the new artistic movements immediately before [WWI] is the expression of the fact that the break between production and consumption became radical; that for this reason art no longer has the task of representing a reality that is preexisting for everyone in common, but rather of revealing, in its isolation, the very cracks that reality would like to cover over in order to exist in safety; and that, in so doing, it repels reality.”[1]
Adorno discusses these concepts in multiple disciplines of art. He seems to say that the modernist music of Schoenberg, the fiction of Kafka, and the painting of Kandinsky followed similar impulses responding to the upheaval of the time. They were defiantly un-realistic in the sense that they were not striving for representational verisimilitude. Their power was derived from upending the expectation of easy intelligibility, of reality, of realism, which paradoxically made them even more real.
It’s Your Turn
Now let’s take a look at a work you find difficult. Instead of Art at Home presenting a work as a case example and interpreting it together, you select something that challenges you. Work your way through the following exercise by asking questions and noting your responses. Be as detailed as you can.
Take a close look. In visual art, looking always comes first. Dismissing something because you can’t immediately “read” it is like judging people without actually talking to them.
What do you know about it? Do you know who made it, when, where, and what its title is? That information might provide some interpretative assistance. Can you find anything written about the work or the artist? Has anybody before you tried to interpret it?
Are there any clues to its interpretation? Artists generally want to communicate. At the same time, they want you to meet them in the middle. What is in the art work that guides you to a feeling or an idea that speaks to the work's essence?
Does it remind you of any other works? Art springs from people, and people spring from their time and place. Art works and objects are tied to other works. Being able to recognize other similar works may help you react to the art work or object more fully.
If you find the work troubling, describe why? Interpreting an art work is not dependent on knowing the artist’s intent, or “liking” the work. Analyze your own reaction. Why do you find it difficult? What does that difficulty say about it and you?
What do you think the artist is trying to convey? When you look at an art work or object through the eyes of its maker, you will gain additional insight. It might not be the way you would make it, but ask yourself what you imagine the artist was thinking.
What does it make you feel? Interpreting art is not wholly dependent upon education and exposure. Yes, those things help, but anyone can look at anything and react to it. Be open to a range of emotions. What does the work do to you, emotionally?
What does it make you think about? Set aside a goal of trying to get into the mind of the artist, for a moment. How does your mind react to it? We reflexively search for the definitive interpretation of a work, but that’s shortchanging the variability that makes art so universal and open to multiple interpretations. Any reasoned reaction is worthwhile.
What choices did the artist make to create the work? Every aspect of the work is a result of choices—its size, materials, shape, colors, forms, composition, and so forth. It might be tempting to dismiss something that you can’t understand, but walk through all of the choices the artist made and ask yourself why you think they were made. Think, “How would the work change if [fill in the blank] were different?” Never ridicule an art work. Treat it respectfully, like you would treat a person.
What do you imagine were the artist’s goals? No professional artist wants to limit the interpretation of a work to one, “true” meaning. In fact, artists typically recoil from being asked what a work means because: a) they don’t want to restrict reactions; and b) they are willing to accept evolving messages that others find in their works. The artist’s goals might be mysterious. What do you think they are?
Do you think the artist wants the viewer to be able to interpret the work in depth? Just because the art work is challenging, it doesn’t mean the artist is veiling its meaning and purpose. What is there in the work that guides you to imagine the depth of inquiry possible for it?
How would others have reacted to this work when it was created? Although we are seeing art and objects through the perpetual present, interpretation can be broadened by imagining how somebody else might have reacted in another day. Another aspect of this question is to imagine what someone from one time period might make of something created now. For example, how would an ancestor of yours have responded to the work you’re seeing? If that’s different from your response, ask yourself what explains the difference.
[1] Theodor W. Adorno, “Why Is the New Art So Hard to Understand?”, Leppert, ed., Essays on Music, p. 131