Two problems with the idea of making psychological ascriptions to art

Problem 1: the intentional fallacy
It is a mistake to try and figure out what the artist ‘meant’ by a piece of art. However, this is what people tend to do.
The artist also becomes more interesting than the artwork, for example Van Gogh, whose work is made even more popular because people know the story of him cutting off his ear.

Problem 2: Kant.
Believes it is vulgar to have a strong emotional response to art.
We should have a ‘Kantian disinterestedness’- a quiet, calm reflective response to art. Subtle ‘aesthetic pleasure.’
Not heights of emotion, as Burke said.

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The first problem with the idea of making psychological ascriptions to art is the intentional fallacy. Some post modern thinkers argue that art has a life separate from the artist; it transcends the artist and his context. It has a value of its own, untethered from the author and his intentions. To become overly preoccupied with the emotions of the author it is to commit the intentional fallacy. Indeed Roland Barthes so diminished the importance of the author that he announced the death of the author. For example it doesn’t matter what Shakespeare thought of ‘Hamlet’ as the play has transcended Shakespeare to become entitled in its own right.

The second problem with this idea is that a piece of art is an inanimate object meaning it is unclear if you make psychological ascriptions to art because it’s uncertain whether it is the artist’s feelings or your own feelings that we become knowledgeable about. When we say a painting is sad it’s just a linguistic convention really we mean it makes us feel sad or whoever painted it was sad, it’s logically incoherent.

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Name: The intentional fallacy
Explain: The intentional fallacy is when we look at a peice of art but instead of having a response to the piece of art as a separate body from its creator, we look at it in how we think the creator wanted us to.
Illustrate: This is a problem with making psychological ascriptions to art because whose emotions are we ascribing to it? the artists, ours or a bit of both? For example with Rothko's Seagram murals we often lapse into the intentional fallacy, as he killed himself the day they arrived in Britain. So people often think that the dark colours of the murals, give us an insight into his tortured mind. When in fact we would not give the murals this psychological ascription if we did not know the manner of his death.
Link: This is a problem with giving psychological ascriptions to art, because the ascriptions we give vary depending on what we think the artist wanted to show.

Name: Art cannot have emotions
Explain: Art cannot have emotions as it does not have a mind
Illustrate: We often give art psychological ascriptions, however art cannot have emotions so it is strange that we give it psychological ascriptions. If the art cannot have emotions then whose emotions is it that we ascribe to the art? The artists?, the audiences? or a mixture of both? For example with Gericault’s raft of the medusa, the audience know that he was aiming to cause controversy so will ascribe some of this to the art. However they will also know that it was a terrible event so will ascribe some of this to it, and they will ascribe some of their own thoughts to the art as well. This shows that the psychological ascriptions are a conglomeration of emotions.
Link: This is a problem because the ascriptions we give to art, are not our own but are a conglomeration of different emotions.

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A problem with making psychological ascriptions to art is that it is confusing. We do not attribute the feelings that art makes us feel to the actual painting but rather to the artist. This asks the question of whether it’s the artist’s reel feeling or ours. However we can’t talk about the artist’s feelings.

Another problem with making psychological ascriptions is that we tend to make the artist become the art. This is demonstrated by Rothko’s ‘Seagram Murals’. Rothko’s associations with the paintings and his death add a lot to how we view them. This makes our opinion corrupted since we add new layers of meaning and emotion to the art, which was probably never meant to be added. This is one of the reasons why there is a problem with psychological ascriptions.

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N – A problem with giving art psychological ascriptions is that we fall into the intentional fallacy, this is where the art becomes more about the artist that the art.
E – We tend not just to look at a piece of art and feel the natural response it provokes within. Sometimes our view of just the art is blocked by the knowledge we may have of the artist. Facts we know of them, their feelings, their possible intentions but this is a problem because we are not just seeing the art as it is or what effect it could have on its own.
I – An artist whose work is very much so associated with him is Rothko. It’s hard not to look at his work without associating it with the circumstances of his death.
L – This means that the art becomes the artist and we lose the effect of the art itself.

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The first problem with the idea of making psychological ascriptions to art is that we try to judge what an artist ‘really’ meant by an art work i.e. to judge their intentions. We can never know what the artist actually wanted the art to mean and so we end up having false ideas about the art that were never intentional in the first place. If we become overly pre-occupied with the meaning of the art and how this is representative of the artists thoughts or feelings then we begin to become ignorant of the actual art in itself. This is called the intentional fallacy and is a problem with making psychological ascriptions to art.

The second problem with the idea of making psychological ascriptions to art is that we say unclear things about art. When we look at a painting, we may say that the painting is sad but this is a linguistic convention as an inanimate object such as a canvas cannot physically be sad. What we really mean is that it makes us feel sad or whoever painted it felt sad. By claiming that the art is sad, then we are making a statement that is logically incoherent as it is not obvious what we really mean by this statement. This is a problem with making psychological ascriptions to art.