Observation and Interpretation

Popular culture would have the average person believe that art is entirely subjective, from the artist’s initial creative processes and production through when a visitor consumes and experiences the art. While this may be mostly true today, historically art has been very objective, with artists seeking to represent what they observe, and utilize other methods to convey their opinions.

In particular, I look to the Impressionist movement in Paris during the last 19th century. Before then, artists were master renderers, completing their training by copying and sketching the works of masters. While the subject matter and iconography were chosen by the artist (which is arguably subjective), representations of the human body and architecture were relatively objective. Artists strove to make these representations proportional and to scale, implementing techniques like linear perspective and the Canon of Proportions. However, the measures stipulated by the Salon and Royal Academy eventually became too rigid for new artists, and thus Impressionism began, marking a significant moment in which objective and observational representation became obsolete, and subjective representation became a radical sensation.

In the article, “Doing science making art”, Bevil Conway highlighted that “making art…is a cognitive act that has an indirect relationship with seeing.” Using the modern artists like Picasso and Matisse as examples, Conway emphasized how, without necessarily direct observation, both were able to evoke emotion or personality with their abstraction, in perhaps an even more successful way than if the art had been figurative.

“Dance” by Matisse“The Old Guitarist” by Pablo Picasso

What I find most interesting about this intersection between observation and interpretation is that both are really required for art and science (as we discussed in the first class), but usually observation is attributed to science and interpretation is attributed to art. At Wellesley, Drawing I students are taught how to see and how to think and how to observe–not how to interpret. In fact, artist interpretation is rarely taught to studio art students, but is actually taught to art history students. While one hopes that the well-rounded art student would utilize skills learned in both classes when creating art, the bottom line is that art is not thought of as a technical, observational subject, but instead as a interpretative one. Given its history, art ought to be more respected as requiring technique and skill, just as the creative process and interpretation of scientific experiments should be held in higher opinion.