Artistic interpretation

3. Intention

Much debate on this topic has centred on the relevance of artists’ intentions. According to one side of this debate, if there is to be a standard of correct interpretation, it must lie in uncovering the intentions of artists regarding the meanings and expressive properties in their works, since otherwise these matters remain indeterminate and open to conflicting construals. According to this view, art is a form of communication, and the aim of the recipient, as in all communication, is the discovery of the speaker’s intentions. According to the other side, artists’ intentions are inaccessible or irrelevant, since, if they are successfully realized, the results will be apparent in the works themselves; and if they are unsuccessful, they cannot determine how a work should be interpreted.

Viewing interpretation as value-enhancing explanation provides a different perspective on this issue. From this viewpoint there is certainly some value to be derived from seeing the world of an art work (and perhaps the real world as well) as its creator saw it and intended it to be seen. Seeing through another’s eyes, or imagining through another’s creative genius, so as to alter one’s own imaginative vision, is a major benefit to be derived from the appreciation of art. This benefit requires fidelity to artists’ intentions, where these are recoverable.

On the other side, to accept recoverable intentions as constraints on correct interpretations, to insist that there is always only one correct interpretation of any work of art and that this is the one intended by its artist, may be to rob contemporary audiences of valuable experiences they might have of the work. A Freudian reading of Hamlet may afford illuminating insights into its characters, whether or not such an interpretation was or could have been intended by Shakespeare. It is commonplace in the domain of music for conductors and performers not to be limited to conveying expressive properties specifically intended by composers. (It might be objected here that the performative interpretations of musicians do not fit the definition of interpretation given above, since they are not explanations. But they are informed by critical interpretations that are not constrained by composers’ explicit intentions.)

The intentionalist can also be accused of confusing speakers’ (artists’) meanings, or what speakers intend to say, with utterance (text) meanings, or what their language conveys according to its semantic conventions. If an utterance or text is unclear or ambiguous, then a speaker’s intentions cannot in themselves make it less so. In ordinary communicative contexts, we do not use speakers’ intentions to clarify the meanings of their utterances; instead, we use the semantic conventions governing their utterances as guides to recovering their linguistic intentions.

Thus, the best argument for intentionalism – the claim that interpretation aims only to disclose artists’ intentions – must be that art is a form of communication and, as such, shares this aim. This is partially correct in that, as indicated above, it points to one major value in the experience of art. But there are others. Since certain art works may be more interesting or expressive if not limited by their creators’ specific intentions, the intentionalist must argue that the value indicated by the communicative model trumps all other values to be derived from the experience of art.

It should be noted finally here that we may ascribe intentions to artists on different levels of specificity. They may intend, for example, not only to convey specific meanings, but for their works to have certain dramatic or expressive effects, or, most broadly, for their works to be appreciated to the fullest extent possible. The realization of this broadest (and perhaps most common) intention may require creative acts of interpretation on the part of audiences. The problem with the orthodox intentionalist view is not (as some critics claim) that it forces us to search outside the work itself for its proper interpretation. We must in any case locate a work correctly in its broader artistic context and tradition to interpret and evaluate it correctly. The problem is rather that it focuses only on one sort of intention and one sort of value at the expense of others.