Sontag has changed how I think about, not just art history, but also about how I write about it.
(Before I go on any further, I recommend you read Sontag’s ‘Against Interpretation’ first, otherwise I will be haunted by her ghost for letting you be influenced by my own interpretation.)
Honestly, Sontag’s essay was difficult for me to understand- it’s the product of months of rereading the original text and figuring out her meaning, first beginning over 6 months ago and the result is this essay. Even then, I feel like this is still just the beginning of my understanding. I found that, not only was it a new idea to me, it was actually against what I had previously been taught. We’re taught to approach texts and art with the aim to understand them, deliberately trying to find meaning beneath the work’s appearance or words. Sontag completely disagrees with this process, hence why it was difficult for me to come to terms with what she was saying.
This essay will be split in two parts for me to fully flesh out my rather chaotic thoughts. I also want to welcome you to respond in the comments, offering your own thoughts on Sontag’s text and my attempt at a response.
Summary of Sontag’s argument
As previously mentioned, this text and the ideas it presents were difficult for me to understand because they go against what I’ve previously understood about how to approach artworks. It reminded me a lot of some Buddhist sayings that aim to draw the reader out of their regular thought patterns (like that of “If you see the Buddha on the road, kill him.”) Even before Sontag’s essay had started, she quotes Oscar Wilde, saying “It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.” Here we can see Sontag’s aim of taking us out of our regular thought patterns, making us question what we know so we can explore a completely different way of approaching art.
In summary of Sontag’s ideas, she argues that modern interpretative theory stems from the first known Western art theory of Plato’s ‘mimesis.’ He stated that art was just a copy of objects, unnecessary and innately suspicious. Therefore, all art theory that has followed sees art’s appearance as hiding something. Interpretation has taken a sinister leaning in this way and aiming, ultimately, to justify the existence of art itself, rather than enjoy it.
Plato’s theory was that all objects were copies of celestial versions. Somewhere in the heavens or another realm is the original chair, for example, so Earth’s chairs are just inferior copies. By extension, a picture of a chair is a copy of a copy, making it both inferior and useless. This theory has endured, albeit implicitly. Take Gombrich, for example, who sees art history as being driven by this need to get closer and closer to depicting reality. We can also see Plato’s influence in Freudian theories of “manifest content”- though applied to dreams here, the theory was a central part of modernist thought. Applying the theory to art, according to Freudian theory, subject matter is always representative of something: the hidden, the abstract, what has to be read between the lines of a text or in the pigment of an art piece. Sontag, as part of the Post-Modern movement, responds to these ideas with criticism.
It’s this idea that art’s value is not visible and must be uncovered by seeking out this hidden ‘truth,’ feeds into wider criticism of art as valueless. You only need to look at Rishi Sunak’s (the current UK Prime Minister) threats to scrap loans for ‘Mickey Mouse’ degrees and at his own personal vendetta against British children by making everyone do maths at A-Level. The arts, as we can see, are often the punching bag and often compared to the sciences and maths through this. Platonic-influenced theory aims to respond to criticism by proving art’s importance, seeking out meanings beneath the appearance of a work. In this way, the visuals of art, as Sontag says, are deemed valueless without these hidden meanings.
As Natalya Sukhonos put it: “art does not exist for the purpose of being consumed, treated like a textbook.” In this way, interpretative theory can be seen as a middleground between art and its skeptics. Here, a mess of pigment on a canvas is turned into a sensical reflection on the meaning of life, something to be understood and be easily digested.
The viewer as reader
Another criticism of Sontag, is that of how interpretation negatively effects the reader and their experience of the work in question. She says that “the interpreter, without actually erasing or reinventing the text, is altering it. But he can’t admit to doing this. He claims to be only making it intelligible by disclosing its true meaning.” (Ironically, this is what you could argue I’m doing right now.) We can see this in classic fiction. Not only are theories much passed around about the meaning of the text, but they’re also placed in the work themselves in the introductions. Here, an outline of the text is presented (often giving some unwanted spoilers) and suggestions of the interpretations of the text’s meaning in the context of the author’s aims and contemporary contexts. Then, as we read the text, our own experience of it has been changed by the introduction, funneled into the narrowed viewpoint of the other person’s ideas. Here, leaving a space for personal interpretation could be more useful, but even this is not entirely accepted by Sontag. I would, however, argue that it’s not only inevitable, but also important: we naturally relate what we see in art to our own experiences and ideas about the world, adapting imagery to memories and narratives to beliefs of our own. Does this mean that we damage the work? Changing the artist’s original intentions and subsequently taking away from them?
In continuation, I disagree with the idea she pushes of critics changing a work, and instead believe that they give a viewpoint through which the individual sees the work. This, according to Sontag, occurs not only on a work-by-work scale, but also on a wider one: that of art history as a whole.
Before Plato, art was experienced in a “magical” and “incantatory” way. Her romanticized view suggests a natural state of “innocence,” drawing the reader towards a feeling of nostalgia for something they didn’t know they’d lost. In other words, she presents a very linear timeline of innocence to the loss of it, without the suggestion of nuance of opinion and experience from person to person, period to period. Instead “the power and credibility of myth had suddenly been broken by the ‘realistic’ view of the world introduced by scientific enlightenment.” Art was suddenly logicized. Interpretated. Tamed. Subsequently, art can now never be simply enjoyed.
Interpretation gives way to seriousness, even pretentiousness. No work of art can be appreciated without also be confined to the structures of interpretation. What’s worse though, is works that are seen as not being adaptable to this serious interpretative element are deemed inferior. Whether purposefully resistant or not, they’re labelled ‘decorative’ or craft, with deliberately misogynistic undertones. Often suffering are works adjacent to fan girl culture, crafts and ‘domestic’ arts (think pop music, embroidery and ‘amateur’ portraiture.)
However, I would argue that interpretation can help us to appreciate works we previously could not. I, for one, could not appreciate Van Eyck’s work until I began looking into the artist’s history and the possible interpretations of his work. Now I can enjoy his work more so than I could before.
Here we can see the paradox at the crux of the relationship between art’s viewers and their interpretation, with the later both hindering and helping. But perhaps, I would venture to say, the best way of applying interpretative theory would be with that of personal interpretation.
But is it possible that still “sacrificed” in this process, as Sukhonos argues, “are the specifics of the artwork which render it alive?” What are the alternatives to interpretation that Sontag offers? And, can interpretation actually be helpful in understanding how artworks interact with social issues, even perpetuate them?
Discussion will continue in Part 2
The Post-Script
Questions:
What are your thoughts on Sontag’s text?
Is Sontag’s stance towards interpretation intellectual or anti-intellectual?
Who, if anyone, influences our understanding of artworks?
And,
How should we approach works of art if not to seek to understand them?
Further readings and sources used:
Currently reading: The Whole Picture by Alice Procter
Recommendation: Petals by Gretchin
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