By David Himmel

It is a fool’s game to attempt to interpret the work—any work— of an artist. Because there is no interpretation. Nothing to be interpreted. The intended meaning is just that—an absolute. The thing you see or hear before you is what the creator intended it to be. Even if that intention was to be ambiguous.

From the arts, as we acknowledge them in our modern tongue, to the utilitarian. Paintings and songs to bridges and roads. Puppets and sonnets to business districts and railway stations.

All we can interpret is our own feelings from it. How does that painting inspire us? What is the song forcing us to remember? “Those children’s puppets are horrifying!” “This sonnet drives me to weep. Then laugh. And weep again.”

The utilitarian creations birth feelings, too. A spooky parking garage. A terrifying building so high you can almost see the curvature of the earth.  An office building so ornate you marvel at how it was done so painstakingly. It’s art deco, eh? It’s also art function, eh. It would be so beautiful if its mass squashed it to a heap of rubble.

Or would it? Was that the architect’s intention? Go ask them. Stop yammering theories based on some history fueled by your on intentions—um, interpretations.

We know nothing of others’ intentions on our own. Only through listening to what comes out of the horse’s mouth can we ever know the real truth.