CONNIE HOPE

Sontag opens by establishing from what source the act art making has been made problematic. She believes that the Greek theory of art, the mimetic theory, as laid out by Plato and unchallenged by Aristotle opened the existential debate about what art is and what art is for. How the Western consciousness reflects upon art could be likened to a noble journey, to reach a climactic point of enlightenment where one can unlock an art works true meaning. Our collective, ceaseless commitment to interpret art, to write it into reality, means that we now must analyse and theorise something that was made for the eyes. As the title of the text suggests, Sontag is against interpretation. Or at least the kind that ‘poisons our sensibilities.’ A hazardous and all too common position that artists find themselves in; one in which anything they create will be subjected to an ‘overt contempt for appearances’. The text is ever relevant today because we recognise art as an asset, despite what it may look like. Art criticism is clear in addressing two separate elements to a work of art. These being form and content. The very act of approaching an art work in order to interpret it is indeed ‘the modern way of understanding something’. These intangible translations and alterations, the plucking and picking at the very seams of an artwork transform the visual into some sort of verbal valuation. What is unveiled is the work’s content. While the form of the work, in all its beauty and purity is thrown to the side like scrap material. It seems interpretation dissolves imagination. There is a remedy, to avoid the effects of interpretation, Sontag suggests that art today must become wise to the contamination of catagorisation. She believes that art can defend itself from the causal damage of painful explanation. All art has to do is occupy realms that deny space for such a thing… No more theory! Nothing but practice!