Who decides what art means? - Hayley Levitt

There is a question that has been tossed around by philosophers and art critics for decades: how much should an artist's intention affect your interpretation of the work? Do the artist’s plans and motivations affect its meaning? Or is it completely up to the judgment of the viewer? Hayley Levitt explores the complex web of artistic interpretation.

Lesson by Hayley Levitt, directed by Avi Ofer.

Thank you so much to our patrons for your support! Without you this video would not be possible! Merit Gamertsfelder, Bev Millar, Rishi Pasham, Jhuval, SookKwan Loong, Daniel Day, Nick Johnson, Bruno Pinho, Javier Aldavaz, Marc Veale, Boytsov Ilya, maxi kobi einy, Misaki Sato, Andrew Bosco, Nik Maier, Mark Morris, Tamás Drávai, Adi V, Peter Liu, Leora Allen, Hiroshi Uchiyama, Julie Cummings-Debrot, Gilly, Ka-Hei Law, Maya Toll, Aleksandar Srbinovski, Ricardo Rendon Cepeda, Renhe Ji, Andrés Melo Gámez, and Tim Leistikow.

[BobMcCoy]

*TED-Ed's animations are a true **_work of art!_*

[aadivrath]

Im no connoisseur of art, but your animations never cease to amaze.
Most YouTube animators and content creators have a fixed style they call their own. They also focus on a particular genre, in which they specialize in. However Ted-Ed is different. The animation varies wildly, and i believe it's fitting for the motto of the channel.

[camillahansen]

Art is personal to every human individual. Your life and experiences may change your perspective on art. Art is something that makes us human, and I truly believe that the intention of creating lives within every human being.

[hafsa]

Trust Ted Ed to make interest in a topic that I never thought of.

[rebeccali]

As someone who draws stuff, I like it when people tell me about their interpretations, this inspires me to create better drawings.

[defaultmesh]

But who decides who decides what art means? 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔

[poweroffriendship.]

_You can't rush art._


*~ Geri (Toy Story 2, 1999)*

[Szylepiel]

One of the biggest influences of my life was when I was yet a kid, like 13-14 or so, when I stumbled across the essay by Roland Barthes "The Death of The Author". I honestly believe one should separate author's identity and supposed intention behind the work from the work itself as framing imposes a limit of interpretation. We should be able to interpret art, whether it's picture, sculpture or a text, however we want and author's interpretation is just one of very many possible.

[golubevblog]

In my opinion art has two main characteristics which make it so valuable for humanity:
- It's ability to record history and express it, it's ability to record feelings and thinking patterns of past and communicating them to us in the present.
- It's capacity to trigger inspiration in human beings in different ways. Since we are all unqiue to some point so our preception of art as well. This brings priceless value to it because world needs inspiration to move forward and progress.

So based on these two, I would say that it's helpful to know the meaning of the artist to start your reasoning process about some piece. However the abstract and unique understanding is what eventually trigger the emotions and lead to creative and possibly innovative ideas which move us forward.

So I would say I mostly agree with that art has no borders and can be percieved anyhow by anyone unless they sincerely feel what they state they do.

[villainoir]

"Do wee need a creator to be able to appreciate the creations?" Wow sounds like a profound theosophical question.

[faizmohammad]

Beauty lies in the eyes of beholder. (Conditions apply)

[villain]

The artist's intent is always the final verdict. Art is a form of communication and a listener cannot decide what the speaker is trying to tell them. However ambiguity can be the intent; the speaker might not always be stating something but sometimes asking questions, and different answers within defined proportions might be what the artist intended. This is the route followed by the greatest of artists, whose works are always somewhat open to interpretation. The intent can't be ambiguous, but ambiguity can be the intent.

[cruiserkid]

I came here for answers dammit, all i'm left with is more questions. love it.

[Salmasayed]

I believe I am a little bit of both, I like the idea that there are a lot of interpretations and perspectives of everyone, but I think it is important as well if we hear the artist perspective and put it into consideration.

[GorgonDrageil]

My quick answer before watching the video:

Every individual observer decides what art means to them...

(Edit:) ...After watching the video I maintain my opinion. All interpretations are valid regardless of artist intent.
Is it wrong for me to stand on a chair or sit cross-legged just because the chair manufacturer only intended it as a seat?
If I use the chair as a doorstop am I invalidating it? ...lol

Creativity inspires creativity. That's the beauty of expression: it leads to more and more novelty (i.e. memes about memes lol). It doesn't matter in what direction an artwork inspires, in my opinion. All that matters is that it inspired. It serves a purpose even if that's unintended.

[paulramos]

All forms of art (from paintings, sculptures, cinemas, comics, to abstracts) have artists' The problem is not every artist her/his intents either directly or otherwise. Another possible way to extract meanings or motives behind the art work(s) is the context of the times (art historians actually do so in case artists left almost nothing in writing or notes whatsoever). Anyways, art is in the eye of the beholder!

[waitwhhhaaaaat]

I love sharing my interpretations with my friends and hear theirs, so i'm definetly don't think that a painting or an art object can have only one and only interpretation. It would be so boring and i don't think that art wants to be that.

[welovfree]

art has different interpretations from different interpreters, but when you find analogies between those interpretations that's what makes an art a great one.

[fareehafaisal]

The Chef throwing the dessert at the face of the person caught me so off guard I laughed for like 10 minutes 🤣🤣🤣

[mauve]

I think a characteristic of ‘great’ art is that they have an endless multiplicity of interpretations and meanings.