The Act of Looking: Wofgang Iser's Literary Theory and Meaning Making in the Visual Arts

In his account about reading novels, Wolfgang Iser argued that the work of art is not the text itself but the experience that emerges as a reader interacts with the text. Yet, he clarified that the aesthetic object is not based only on the subjective input of the reader but also determined by specif...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The international journal of art & design education 2008-06, Vol.27 (2), p.168-180
Main Author: Hubard, Olga M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Art education
Iser, Wolfgang
Literary criticism
Sculpture
Theory
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Summary:In his account about reading novels, Wolfgang Iser argued that the work of art is not the text itself but the experience that emerges as a reader interacts with the text. Yet, he clarified that the aesthetic object is not based only on the subjective input of the reader but also determined by specific signs that a text presents. This article draws from Iser's theories to examine the process through which five teenagers discover meaning in an sculpture by artist Isamu Noguchi. The author shows how the young viewers arrived at a series of readings that were elicited by the qualities of the work and that built upon each other in a sort of snowballing process. The article also illustrates how the sort of meaning that an artwork can yield stretches throughout the whole experience and can therefore not be translated into a discursive statement.
ISSN:1476-8062
1476-8070
DOI:10.1111/j.1476-8070.2008.00572.x