Via Arts and Letters Daily is an interview with Ray Bradbury wherein he mentions that he never intended people to interpret Fahrenheit 451 as a warning against censorship, but rather a warning against the lack of substance on television. At a time when the few people who had televisions were watching shows on seven inch black and white screens, he rather presciently foresaw a world where people had wall sized televisions. (One even dominates the wall of his house these days.)

So often in the arts we are in a position of interpreting meaning for others. In many cases we don’t have the creator alive and available to check our perceptions against. To a certain extent, artists cede control over what a work means as soon as they show it to another person. Artists need to accept that people will see things in a work that aren’t there and then will start deconstructing it looking for more.

Of course, if the artist tells you point blank that they didn’t infuse their work with the meanings you are seeing, you as the observer can revel in your discovery of the unintended, but shouldn’t insist it means something else to the artist’s face. Bradbury apparently walked out of a class at UCLA because students wouldn’t stop insisting he was talking about censorship.

This type of situation raises questions about interpreting the meaning of art. First of all, if thousands of high school English teachers have been disseminating the wrong information about the themes intended by a living author, what are educators and those serving the same role at arts organizations getting wrong about dead artists?

As we write program notes, conduct Q&As or talk to ushers and patrons in the lobby, how much are we getting wrong? Maybe the idea that Hamlet was motivated by an Oedipal complex never crossed Shakespeare’s mind. (Especially since the concept is never considered until after Freud coined the term.)

Second is the matter of balance. Where does the balance fall between telling people what is meant and telling people there is no single correct interpretation? People come to educators and arts professionals for the tools to process unfamiliar material. We try to give them language and lenses to assist in this endeavor but part of the joy of encountering art is to see something no one told you was there.

The problem is that sometimes these realizations are tainted by the context we bring to the work and don’t reflect the intentions or reality of the artist. Now granted, personal context is the basis of some works of art like Impressionist paintings. But you are also in the position of not being able to tell people they are wrong about Hamlet since you subscribe to and encourage the “No wrong answer” school of thought.

There are lengthy essays written on this whole concept. But let me just toss a thought out there for you to ponder–

Who owns the meaning of a work of art? Even if you are polite to Ray Bradbury and believe that he only intended the book to be about television, is he essentially only accorded the status of a equal interpreter of art because he has missed all the other aspects of the book that speak to you?

The funny thing is, in denying an artist’s stated intent one often holds him/her in greater esteem for being such an adept creator, they subconsciously invested their work with multiple layers of meaning.