DOI Artikel:
Kesner, Ladislav: Understanding of art as active visual hermeneutics
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51712#0009
ŠTÚDIE / ARTICLES
ARS 39, 2006, 1
Understanding of Art
as Active Visual Hermeneutics
Ladislav KESNER
Introduction
Understanding, as the final outcome of interpre-
tative action, is implicitly present in all thoughts about
interprétation. Yet there is a significant contradiction
in the recent practice of art history between, a massive
- almost narcissistic - attention lavished on the Prob-
lems of interprétation on one hand and the corre-
sponding lack of interest in the problém of under-
standing of works of art on the other. It is a split
between the double meaning of “hermeneutics” —
while art history has been bušily engaging herme-
neutics in the sense of theory or a method of inter-
prétation, it was much more reluctant to pursue
hermeneutics as an art of understanding.1 At the be-
ginning of his essay on Laocoön, lamenting the lack
of understanding of this profound aesthetic object,
American art historian Richard Brilliant recently ob-
served that “disinterest, born of ignorance and new systém
of values deprives hermeneutics — the act of search for under-
standing - of its purpose.”2 Yet there are clearly many
reasons why the issue of understanding does not loom
high on the agenda of art historical theory and prac-
tice.
The battle between humanistic positions ascertain-
ing a stable meaning and establishing such a meaning
1 For this double sense of hermeneutic enterprise see e.g. GRON-
DIN, J.: Einführung in die philosophische Hermeneutik. Darm-
stadt 1991.
BRILLIANT, R.: My Laocoön. Alternative Claims in the Interpre-
tation of Artworks. Los Angeles — Berkeley 1999, p. 4.
3 I have dealt with these epistemological issues in Interpreta-
tion elsewhere KESNER, L. (ed.): Vizuální teorie. Současné ang-
ln a work of art as the true aim of interprétation on
one hand, and various forms of relativism which deny
such a possibility on the other, may no longer pose
a major issue in the humanities (such as it may have
been the case a decade ago)3 and a very few interest-
ing and valuable interprétations embrace extreme
stances of perspective cultural relativism. But the
cumulative influence of these attitudes undoubtedly
contributed to the general sentiment that, in perceiv-
ing art, “anything goes”, and that each viewer is en-
titled to his/her private understanding - hence “mis-
understanding” a work of art does not really matter.
The reticence to deal explicitly with understanding
may then register as the fact that art historians willy-
nilly accept that individual making-sense of museum
viewers, or readers of their texts, is an unpredictable,
intersubjective matter, inaccessible to rigorous dis-
course of “scientific” discipline, used to handling
“hard" facts about works of art. Therefore, the view-
er’s understanding, his/her expérience of a work of
art, is better pushed outside the purview of art histo-
ry to the realms of philosophical aesthetics, psychol-
ogy, or museum éducation.4
In this essay, I shall proceed on the opposite as-
sumption, námely that understanding a work of art
is a matter of conséquence for concerns of art history,
lo-americké myšlení o výtvarných dílech. Jinočany 2006, 2nd révi-
sée! édition; and KESNER, L.: Muzeum umění v digitální době.
Vnímání obrazů a prožitek umění v soudobé společnosti. Praha 2000,
esp. p. 202-218.
4 KESNER, L.: Kritická teorie, „vědecké“ dějiny umění
a prožitek uměleckého díla. In: BARTLOVÁ, M. (ed.): Ději-
ny umění v české společnosti: otázky, problémy, výzvy. Praha 2004,
p. 21-31.
3
ARS 39, 2006, 1
Understanding of Art
as Active Visual Hermeneutics
Ladislav KESNER
Introduction
Understanding, as the final outcome of interpre-
tative action, is implicitly present in all thoughts about
interprétation. Yet there is a significant contradiction
in the recent practice of art history between, a massive
- almost narcissistic - attention lavished on the Prob-
lems of interprétation on one hand and the corre-
sponding lack of interest in the problém of under-
standing of works of art on the other. It is a split
between the double meaning of “hermeneutics” —
while art history has been bušily engaging herme-
neutics in the sense of theory or a method of inter-
prétation, it was much more reluctant to pursue
hermeneutics as an art of understanding.1 At the be-
ginning of his essay on Laocoön, lamenting the lack
of understanding of this profound aesthetic object,
American art historian Richard Brilliant recently ob-
served that “disinterest, born of ignorance and new systém
of values deprives hermeneutics — the act of search for under-
standing - of its purpose.”2 Yet there are clearly many
reasons why the issue of understanding does not loom
high on the agenda of art historical theory and prac-
tice.
The battle between humanistic positions ascertain-
ing a stable meaning and establishing such a meaning
1 For this double sense of hermeneutic enterprise see e.g. GRON-
DIN, J.: Einführung in die philosophische Hermeneutik. Darm-
stadt 1991.
BRILLIANT, R.: My Laocoön. Alternative Claims in the Interpre-
tation of Artworks. Los Angeles — Berkeley 1999, p. 4.
3 I have dealt with these epistemological issues in Interpreta-
tion elsewhere KESNER, L. (ed.): Vizuální teorie. Současné ang-
ln a work of art as the true aim of interprétation on
one hand, and various forms of relativism which deny
such a possibility on the other, may no longer pose
a major issue in the humanities (such as it may have
been the case a decade ago)3 and a very few interest-
ing and valuable interprétations embrace extreme
stances of perspective cultural relativism. But the
cumulative influence of these attitudes undoubtedly
contributed to the general sentiment that, in perceiv-
ing art, “anything goes”, and that each viewer is en-
titled to his/her private understanding - hence “mis-
understanding” a work of art does not really matter.
The reticence to deal explicitly with understanding
may then register as the fact that art historians willy-
nilly accept that individual making-sense of museum
viewers, or readers of their texts, is an unpredictable,
intersubjective matter, inaccessible to rigorous dis-
course of “scientific” discipline, used to handling
“hard" facts about works of art. Therefore, the view-
er’s understanding, his/her expérience of a work of
art, is better pushed outside the purview of art histo-
ry to the realms of philosophical aesthetics, psychol-
ogy, or museum éducation.4
In this essay, I shall proceed on the opposite as-
sumption, námely that understanding a work of art
is a matter of conséquence for concerns of art history,
lo-americké myšlení o výtvarných dílech. Jinočany 2006, 2nd révi-
sée! édition; and KESNER, L.: Muzeum umění v digitální době.
Vnímání obrazů a prožitek umění v soudobé společnosti. Praha 2000,
esp. p. 202-218.
4 KESNER, L.: Kritická teorie, „vědecké“ dějiny umění
a prožitek uměleckého díla. In: BARTLOVÁ, M. (ed.): Ději-
ny umění v české společnosti: otázky, problémy, výzvy. Praha 2004,
p. 21-31.
3