JAIC 1996, Volume 35, Number 3, Article 3 (pp. 197 to 218)

THE ARTIST'S INTENTIONS AND THE INTENTIONALFALLACY IN FINE ARTS CONSERVATION

STEVEN W. DYKSTRA

ABSTRACT—A formal claim was made in the mid-20th century that the goal of art conservation is to

present the artwork as the artist intended it to be seen. Dispute over this claim among conservators and

art historians involved differences of perspective on the relative roles of science and art history in the

interpretation of artist's intent. A separate but concurrent debate among philosophers, art critics, and

literary critics was sparked by publication of “The Intentional Fallacy,” a scholarly article discrediting

appeals to the intentions of artists and authors in art and literary criticism. In this separate debate,

difficulty in the evaluation and application of artist's intent was traced to ambiguity of the term “intent.”

The author discusses 11 variations of its meaning and puts the issues surrounding artist's intent togetherin the contexts of art conservation. He also presents more recent viewpoints in the social sciences that

associate issues of artist's intent with the role of the artist in the continued existence of the artwork. The

writings of contemporary philosophers contribute useful perspectives on the essential nature of art and

the autonomy of artworks from their creators. The author finds that the interpretation and application of

artist's intent is an interdisciplinary task and that its evaluation in conservation contexts is limited toconsideration of distinctive stylistic characteristics that demonstrate the correlated individuality of artists

and their work.

TITRE—L'intention de l'artiste et la tromperie intentionnelle dans la conservation des oeivres d'art.

RÉSUMÉ—Au milieu du 20e siècle, on prétendait que l'objectif de la restauration était de rendre aux

oeuvres d'art l'aspect que l'artiste avait voulu leur donner. La controverse qui s'en suivit parmi les

restaurateurs et les historiens d'art suscita des différences de considération sur les rôles relatifs de la

science et de l'histoire de l'art dans l'interprétation de l'intention de l'artiste. Un débat séparé mais

parallèle parmi les philosophes, les critiques d'art et les critiques littéraires fut déclenché par la

publication d'un article érudit intitulé “The Intentional Fallacy,” qui s'opposait à cette référence aux

intentions des artistes et des auteurs dans la critique artistique et littéraire. Dans ce débat particulier, ladifficulté de l'évaluation et de l'application de l'intention de l'artiste provenait de l'ambiguïté même du

terme “intention.” L'auteur examine 11 significations différnetes de ce mot, et il pose le problème de

l'intention de l'artiste dans les contextes liés au domaine de la restauration. En outre, il présente des

points de vue plus recénts, tirés des sciences sociales qui associent les problèmes de l'intention de

l'artiste à celui de son rôle dans l'existence continue de l'oeuvre d'art. Les ouvrages des philosophes

contemporains apportent des perspectives utiles sur la nature essentielle de l'art et de l'autonomie des

oeuvres vis-à-vis de leurs créateurs. L'auteur pense que l'interprétation et l'étude des intentions de

l'artiste est une tâche interdisciplinaire, et que son évaluation dans les contextes de la restauration doit

être limitée à la considération des caractéristiques stylistiques particulières qui démontrent l'individualité

corrélative des artistes et de leurs oeuvres.

TÍTULO: La intención del artista y la falacia intencional en la conservación de objetos de arte.

RESUMEN: A mediados del siglo 20 fue hecha una afirmación formal acerca de que el objetivo de la

conservación de arte es presentar la obra para que sea vista de acuerdo a la intención del artista. Ladisputa sobre esta afirmación entre conservadores e historiadores del arte comprendió diferencias de

perspectiva sobre los roles relativos de la ciencia y la historia del arte en la interpretación de la intención

del artista. Un debate entre filósofos, criticos de arte y críticos literarios, generado en forma

independiente pero concurrente con esta disputa, fue encendido por la publicación de “La Falacia

Internacional,” un artículo erudito que desacredita el recurso de apelar a las intenciones de los artistas y

autores en las críticas del arte y la literatura. En este debate independiente, la dificultad en la evaluación

y aplicación de la intención del artista fue adjudicada a la ambigüedad del término “intención.” El autor

discute 11 variaciones en el significado de este término, y coloca conjuntamente las cuestiones que

rodean a la intención del artista dentro de los contextos de la conservación de arte. También presenta

puntos de cista mas recientes en el campo de las ciencias sociales que asocian las cuestiones relativas a

la intención del artista con el rol que éste tiene en la existencia perdurable de la obra de arte. Losescritos de filósofos contemporáneos contribuyen con perspectivas útiles acerca de la naturalcza

esencial del arte y la autonomía de las obras de arte respecto de sus creadores. El autor encuentra que

la interpretación y aplicación de la intención del artista es una tarea interdisciplinaria, y que su

evaluación en contextos de conservacíon esta limitada a consideraciones sobre caractéristicasestilísticas distintivas, que demuestran la correlativa individualidad de los artistas y sus obras.

1 INTRODUCTION

The restoration of fine art, as it is conceived and practiced in the West, is occasionally accompanied bycontroversy. Since the Renaissance, various standards and principles of restoration practice have been

proposed and pursued, debated, and revised or discarded by succeeding generations. Among the mostprominently debated principles in the 20th century is the claim that the goal of art conservation should

be to present the artwork as the artist originally intended it to be seen. This idea emerged informally andanonymously in the late 19th century after advances in scientific analysis raised the possibility of

identifying the artist's original materials and distinguishing them from later additions or alterations due toage, nature, accident, or human intervention.

It was inevitable that science would be applied to art and art history. Scientific approaches to worldly

knowledge found increasing acceptance and recognition in the previous two centuries, and, by the early19th century, the scientific perspective was formed into a system of philosophy based on the positivedata of sense experience. Positivism located the roots of truth and knowledge in positive, observable

scientific facts and their relations to each other and to natural law. In reaction, antipositivism arose toproclaim and defend the validity of human experience and human knowledge beyond the analytic reach

of scientific method. Antipositivists concerned themselves with the soundness and cogency ofexperience and knowledge in the personal and social realms, especially in what came to be known as

the social sciences. Debate between positivists and antipositivists received the most focused attention inthe fields of anthropology and sociology. By the end of the 19th century, positivism was so broadly

exercised and widespread that national differences in its application to art and art criticism wereapparent (Broude 1991). In art history and in the emerging discipline of art conservation, debate aboutthe role and influence of science and scientific technologies became involved with the concept of artist's

intent in the National Gallery cleaning controversy of the 1940s and 1950s, when a technologicallydefined idea of following the artist's intentions was formalized as a principle of art conservation.

Simultaneously, in literary and philosophical circles, the concept of artist's intent became the direct

subject of another debate, unrelated to scientific and technological considerations. The phrase

“intentional fallacy” was coined in the title of an influential scholarly article claiming that artists' intentions

are neither available nor desirable as a standard for assessing art. The position established in “The

Intentional Fallacy” (Wimsatt and Beardsley 1946) became known as anti-intentionalism. Intentionalistsdisagreed, arguing that any sense of the artist's intention, however obscure, can be a useful resource in

interpreting a work of art.

Philosophy is not often a forte of the pragmatic practitioner, concerned with empirical results. Unlikephilosophers, historians, and literary critics, art conservators did not separate along intentionalist and

anti-intentionalist lines. While other disciplines perceived their specific issues in terms of positivismversus antipositivism and differing theories of art criticism and interpretation, conservators were

artificially and superficially separated into two ad hoc schools—aesthetic conservators and scientificconservators. The broader issues became mired in methodological disagreement, and the principle of

adherence to the artist's intentions was reduced to a casual tenet of conservation theory.

Most of the uncertainty and ambiguity surrounding artist's intentions can be directly attributed to the useof the word “intention” when it is applied to artists and their work. The word is tightly tied to subtle anddiverse references to artistic biography and to competing theories of art, creativity, and aesthetics.

Unraveling the knotted meanings of this word is necessary for improved discussion of the idea and itssurrounding issues in the field of art conservation. Precise language and a deliberate understanding of the

role of the artist in the artwork allow artist's intent to be carefully comprehended and applied to artconservation issues in a clear and constructive way.

Important contributions to this work come from philosophers working in the field of contemporary

hermeneutics, the specific subdiscipline of philosophy concerned with the processes of interpretation,discourse, and humanistic understanding. In the past two decades, this work has shed new light on

artistic discourse, the role of the artist, and the fundamental nature of works of art. The nature of art,artist's intentions, theory of the text, and theory of the work are all vital topics in contemporary

hermeneutics.

2 MATERIAL MORTALITY: THE UNDERLYING PROBLEM

Artists' intentions can have various levels of complexity and reference, but conservators quicklyrecognize a familiar problem at the root of the surrounding issues. Time, grime, and mishap always

create conditions that obscure, alter, or destroy the character of the artist's original work. Paints dry,

crack, and flake; canvases sag; and panels split. Organic colorants may fade to translucence, and

metallic pigments can oxidize from red and green to black and brown. Additionally, one or morerestorers may have had a hand in the artwork by reinterpreting or attempting to reveal, repair, or

replace what the artist created, often with temporary effect. Eternally durable and changeless materials

are unavailable to artists and conservators alike. Natural processes and physical conditions eventually

alter the attributes of materials that succeed under the artist's hand or in the conservator's studio.Conservators know how difficult it can be to predict or control these alterations, and it makes for wary

work. Regardless of the artist's clarity of purpose, all his or her material determinations are subject to

physical damage, decline, and decay. Artistic achievements are not and cannot be fixed forever in thefinal physical result of artists' creative work.

Recent analytic research in art conservation makes the temporality of artists' materials painfully

apparent. A work of art that is carefully protected from grime, environmental and mechanical stress,

mishap, and restoration is nonetheless subject to chemical decomposition. Changes in materials begin in

the first instant of their use. Depending on the artist's choices, changes may be rapid or slow, but usually

chemical change becomes apparent within a quarter century.

Georges Seurat's La Grande Jatte (1884–86, Art Institute of Chicago) lost its initial luminous charm

within five years. Its yellow, orange, and green pigments were quick to decay into more stable, less

colorful chemical compounds (Fiedler 1984). Albert Pinkham Ryder's incessant reworking withmixtures of varnish and paint was driven, in part, by quickly fading artistic effects (Svoboda and Van

Vooren 1989). Until his death, Ryder struggled with the appearance of The Tempest (1890s and later,

Detroit Institute of Arts), first exhibited to the public more than 25 years earlier. Today, many of hispaintings have deteriorated almost beyond recognition.

Twentieth-century art is not exempt from this effect. Joseph Albers's meticulously chosen and applied

paints exhibit differing types and rates of deterioration within the same painting (Garland 1983). MarkRothko mixed his paint for the Houston chapel to achieve a special paint surface quality that proved to

be exceptionally short lived (Mancusi-Ungaro 1981).

Some contemporary artists consciously disregard the quick mortality of the media they select,suggesting that permanence is irrelevant to their work. Jasper Johns once joked that he would be a

richer man if he were the conservator of his encaustic paintings instead of their creator (quoted in Wyer

1988, 46). Robert Rauschenberg said, “Art has risk built into it. … I don't consider any material

unavailable to me” (quoted in Wyer 1988, 46). Anselm Kiefer's works that include straw on the surfacedeteriorate so readily that debris was reported to accumulate on an exhibition hall floor between regular

sweepings (Wyer 1988, 48).

The technical impossibility of stopping the deterioration of an artist's initial creation is clearly understood

today. In the face of desperate problems, lighthearted conservators may playfully wish for frigid,

lightless, airless storage vaults, perhaps deep in caves on the dark side of the moon! Equally playful is

the futuristic hypothesis that molecularly exact reproductions could substitute for artists' deterioratedoriginals. There is a note of ironic humor in the realization that the next generation of conservators would

meet the deferred problems again when faced with conservation of the replica.

Because physical artworks are the primary grounds for representing artist's intentions, a paradoxoccurs: physical materials decay, but artists' purposes, aims, goals, and objectives exist in a

psychological arena where they do not decompose or deteriorate. Eventually and inevitably artists'

materials lose fidelity in their allegiance and attachment to artist's intentions. Recognition of physical

decay or damage invites questions about the materials' reference to the artist's intent. These questionscan be surprisingly varied and complex, and there are equally various and complicated ways of

attempting to answer them.

3 POSITIVISM AND THE ARTIST'S INTENTIONS

Beginning in the later 19th century, science and the scientific method were introduced into the mix of

crafts and techniques used by serious art restorers. Scientific advances and refinements in scientific

method opened the possibility of uniform and analytic approaches to restoration problems and

processes. The use of scientific procedures promised relief from confusion and criticism caused byidiosyncratic or arbitrary restoration practices in the past. An emphasis on preservation and the use of

knowledge in the physical and chemical sciences eventually came to distinguish the new discipline of art

conservation from the older trade of restoration. Applied to art and art conservation, positivism implied

that aesthetic and art historical apprehension had to be acquired candidly through the senses and be

based on frank observation and experiment. In the positivist's view, intuitions, impressions, insights,

suppositions, feelings, and the like are questionable and uncertain ways of understanding. “Positive”

knowledge depends on empirical science (Broude 1991, 114).

By the time the first American conservation laboratory was established at the Fogg Art Museum in

1928, it was simply accepted that the natural sciences were the model and method for describing the

standards by which artworks would be restored and maintained. Art conservation was understood tobe a matter of chemistry, physics, and mechanics, and it was the responsibility of professional

practitioners, working under strict guidelines based on a solid scientific foundation (Stout 1948, vi–vii).

Although science became an indispensable part of the conservator's training and perspective, it couldnot become an exclusive approach. Science provided the means for developing technologies, detecting

significant facts, and matching them to theory. In practice, it could describe reliable means for achieving

certain ends, but it could not decide the suitability of those ends or justify them by scientific virtue alone.Instead there was a belief that the authority of science and scientific technologies would complement the

art of restoration and lend it the type of credibility that was carved out in the natural sciences. There was

confidence that a measure of scientific objectivity would dispel any perceptions of art restoration as an

entirely interpretive and unrestrained process.

Scientific foundations notwithstanding, controversy embroiled the young discipline of art conservation

just as it had plagued earlier means and manners of restoration. In 1947, the National Gallery, London,

held a special exhibition of newly cleaned paintings, partly to demonstrate the results of serious scientificconservation. Reactions to this exhibition were not universally favorable. Contrary and inflamed opinions

were expressed by the general public in letters to the Times and the Sunday Telegraph. In addition to

the public tumult, some distinguished art historians and respected critics also disputed the cleaningresults. Many of the most rational and scholarly arguments were eventually presented in the pages of

Burlington Magazine. Three months after the exhibition's opening, Burlington editors commented:

Though our most serious quarrel is with those who maintain that the national pictures havebeen damaged, we still cling to the suspicion, which even this most reassuring Exhibition

cannot entirely dispel, that the responsible authorities set too much store by science, and

too little by that capricious barometer registering sensibility (Burlington Magazine 1947).

Helmut Ruhemann, the gallery's director of conservation, was a strong supporter of a positivist

approach. In response to demands and questions from an independent board of inquiry, conservators at

the National Gallery referred to technical evidence and scientific analysis done during the treatments to

argue that historical speculation and metaphysical clutter had created misconceptions about the trueappearance of old paintings. Ruhemann and the positivist conservators firmly believed that scientific

observation, study, and experimentation validated systematic art conservation technologies and that

consistent application of these technologies accurately exposed, preserved, and truthfully presented thematerials originally laid down by the artist. In this way, the intentions of the artist were served equitably,

without interpretive distortion. Ruhemann and his supporters defined and defended their position by

appealing to the artist's intentions as an authoritative principle. Conservators from the National Gallery

claimed: “It is presumed to be beyond dispute that the aim of those entrusted with the care of paintingsis to present them as nearly as possible in the state in which the artist intended them to be seen”

(MacLaren and Werner 1950, 189).

In its most dogmatic form, this claim implied that all artifacts of aging and all previous retouching should

be removed or remedied to the extent technologically possible without harming or obscuring the

remaining original paint. The conservator's job was “to preserve and show to its best advantage every

original particle remaining of a painting,” and in so doing he or she should be “guided by the master'sintention” (Ruhemann 1963, 202).

This technologically driven program for following the artist's intentions was supposed to represent an

objective, noninterpretive approach to restoration. It was questioned by conservators and art historianswith antipositivist leanings who insisted that artistic, aesthetic, and historical considerations were not

receiving enough attention in a narrow and insensitive conception of conservation goals. Cesare Brandi,

head of the Instituto del Restauro in Rome, told attendees at the 1948 International Council of

Museums meeting in Paris, “We may often find ourselves in closer touch with the mind of the artist by

leaving the picture with its patina than by removing it” (1949, 188). Paul Coremans of the Courtauld

Institute defended the cleaning of a Rubens in the 1947 exhibition but admitted, “I do not claim to haveexhausted the subject, especially since my argument is confined to chemical, physical, and technical

considerations, and since the cleaning of old pictures should at the same time be judged in the light of

aesthetic criteria” (1948, 261).

In reaction to Ruhemann's 1961 publication of a positivist approach to Leonardo DaVinci's use of

sfumato, art historian Ernst Gombrich revisited the issues raised by the 1947 exhibition and became

leader of the antipositivist opposition with a claim that strictly technical approaches to conservationtreatment yielded paintings whose condition and appearance were newly artificial and alien to any

human memory or recollection (Gombrich 1962). Art historical understanding and connoisseurship

should control the course of conservation treatment, he argued. New appearances should not be

discovered or determined by technical methods alone. Gombrich and his supporters insisted that

paintings should be restored with a comparative and discerning eye toward their faded colors, their

characteristic patina, and inevitable decay. They claimed that prudent aesthetic and historical

interpretations should have precedence over technologically determined expositions.

The National Gallery cleaning controversy, which also became known as the Ruhemann-Gombrich

debate, revolved around issues of artist's intentions. Both camps invoked these issues in their arguments

(Carrier 1985, 291–92). On Gombrich's side, the general claim was that a technologically driven

approach does not necessarily respect artistic or historical consideration of an artist's work (Gombrich

1963). Argument from historical research asserted that certain Old Masters anticipated the aging of

their work, intending them to darken and fade (Kurz 1962, 1963). Connoisseurship and aesthetic

observation suggested that purposeful artistic effects, perhaps the use of tinted varnishes and glazes,were not recognized by positivist methods and techniques (Rees-Jones 1962). Additionally, paintings

change in time, Gombrich and his supporters argued, and in a way that is not retractable; they cannot be

returned to their original order and state as they appeared in the hands of their makers. Referring

indirectly to the cleaning of Titian's Virgin and Child with Saints John & Catherine, Gombrich

remarked, “One should have thought it is common ground that Titian is dead and that we cannot ask

him what his intention was” (Gombrich 1962, 54). The National Gallery cleaning controversy deflated

somewhat after Ruhemann's camp contrived a mocking pun accusing Gombrich and followers offascination with “dirty” pictures (Walden 1985, 118).

In 1977, a similar controversy erupted at the National Gallery of Art in Washington over the cleaning of

paintings, especially one attributed to Rembrandt. By this time, the differences between positivist and

antipositivist approaches divided the art conservation profession into scientific and aesthetic camps, at

least in the perception of the communications media and its public (Hochfield 1976, 1978). John

Brealey, conservator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, was cast to represent the aesthetic

antipositivist approach (Tompkins 1987): “What we don't do here is try to make believe the whole thing

is scientific, wear white coats and use Formica tables and pretend we're dealing with absolutes” (quoted

in Glueck 1980). Scientific or purist conservators were less willing to entertain media attention. Their

research, techniques, and analyses were supported by publication in technical and professional journals,

and when invited to counter their antagonists and critics, they often chose to remain nameless (McGill

1987). Although their rhetoric was adamant and their arguments were sound, aesthetic conservators

could not reduce the power and status of the scientific approach. The personal authority of individualerudition was essential to the aes-thetic conservators' position. Its personal source and subjective

premises did not hold against the impersonal authority of science.

The controversy and debate between conservators refocused and intensified the uncomfortable

atmosphere of ad hominem argument that has surrounded restoration issues for centuries. Titian, for

instance, restored several masterpieces in his day and employed a personal insult to criticize Sebastiano

del Piombo's retouching of the famous rooms at the Vatican, originally painted by Raphael (Dolce

[1577] 1970, 22–23). Eugène Delacroix claimed that restoration was vandalism perpetrated bymiserable daubers who destroyed artworks by usurping the place of real artists, substituting new work

for the originals (1948, 104). Speaking of the individual erudition necessary for the aesthetic

conservator's work, one conservator remarked:

[There] is an implicit tendency for the method to create prima donna restorers, who, as

they are actively changing old masters, must lay claim to great sensitivity and a highly

perceptive eye. This can lead to futile discussions since, to disagree with an individual ofsuch capacities, simply confirms your own lack of those qualities (Hedley 1985, 19).

Conservators, art historians, and critics with less polemical responses to controversy avoided the

sharpened horns of this dilemma between scientific and aesthetic methods. Many believed that scientific

authority and art historical weight can often be balanced in conservation work. Another conservator

recalled Erwin Panofsky's tribute to Paul Coremans, who “more than anyone else encouraged the art

historical lamb to dwell with the scientific wolf,” quoting Coremans's words:

We intend to grant an equal importance to the elements of appreciation in the areas

historic, aesthetic, scientific and technical. We believe, in effect, that it is erroneous and

baneful to raise a barrier between knowledge called scientific, the result of observation and

of the interpretation of the facts, and the knowledge called intuitive, born from

contemplation. We have, on the contrary, the conviction that only their association, their

interpenetration, always in a more profound way, will permit us to progress towards

treatments ever more effective and more respectful of the objects (quoted in Weil 1984,

91).

In the long lingering aftermath of the National Gallery cleaning controversy, it eventually became clear

that the positivist postulation about serving the artist's intentions was hollow. A strict, technologically

driven approach achieved only a scientifically bona fide presentation of authentic material—a

presentation that did not necessarily reveal the artist's original creation, support conventions of

connoisseurship, or fulfill art historical research and precedent.

4 THE INTENTIONAL FALLACY: INTENTIONALISM VS. ANTI-INTENTIONALISM

Mid-century debate among conservators and art historians about standards, principles, and the artist's

intent was contemporaneous with a parallel debate in literary and philosophical circles. However, therewas little if any crossover on this subject between the art conservation profession and the disciplines of

art criticism, literary criticism, and the philosophy of art. In these other disciplines, discourse on the

intentions of artists and authors and intentionality in general were less polemical, more orderly, and more

prolific. A debate between intentionalists and anti-intentionalists was inspired by Wimsatt and

Beardsley's essay, “The Intentional Fallacy,” appearing in the Sewanee Review (1946). This debate

ultimately arrived at the description of many subtle conceptual differences packed into the seemingly

simple abstraction “intent.” The word and its exact reference in a given context became a subject and a

problem in itself.

The intentional fallacy is not an error of formal logic like the circular argument or begging the question.

Instead, it represents the claim that artist's intent is neither available nor desirable as a standard for

assessing artistic works: mistaken justification occurs when readers or beholders attribute scientific,

critical, or historical interpretations to the mentality of the author or artist. This justification appears

mistaken because these interpretations have sources that are several steps removed from the artist's

thought. Only the work was directly created by the artist, not the interpretations derived from it bybeholders. The intentional fallacy applies when critics, historians, or conservators associate their

analyses and interpretations with the artist's work and equate their conclusions with the artist's aims.

Simply stated, the intentional fallacy insists that our interpretations are our own and we are mistaken if

we identify them with the artist instead of ourselves.

Wimsatt and Beardsley's article framed the topic of artist's intent in a way that provoked discussions

and invited critiques. In the following years, a number of scholarly articles were published drawing

examples to support or contradict its application to specific literary and artistic cases. Controversy,confusion, and excitement grew and the intentional fallacy gained a certain notoriety as a burdensome

stumbling block in art and literary criticism. Within a decade, the proliferation of commentators on this

topic led to the organization of a symposium on “Intention and Interpretation in Art” at the annual

meeting of the American Philosophical Association, Eastern Division, in 1955. The purpose of the

symposium was to air and clarify intentionalist and anti-intentionalist views.

Anti-intentionalists argued that the relevance of the artist's intent is found only in the artwork, not in theinner workings of the artist's psyche. If the artist's intentions are carried out successfully, the artwork

shows what the artist was trying to do. If the artist did not accomplish what was intended, the unrealized

intentions remain undisclosed in that work. To attempt to find intentions elsewhere is to move away

from the work at hand in pursuit of psychological speculations that have nothing to do with the aesthetic

features of the work itself (Hungerland 1955).

Intentionalists countered that artists' personalities, intellectual approaches, psychological stances, and

creative attitudes all affect the disposition of the artworks they create. Awareness of these factorsshapes our perspective when we wish to make critical or analytic interpretations. These considerations

do not take us away from the artwork, but rather they bring it closer. If their influence is denied or

refused, our resources for interpretation are desperately impoverished (Aiken 1955).

In the philosopher's language, Ruhemann and the other conservation positivists were anti-intentionalists

who found their guiding evidence in the artwork alone. The approach espoused by Gombrich and his

followers characterized them as intentionalists in their insistence that artistic, aesthetic, and historicalinterpretations must also be considered in conservation work.

During and after the symposium, it was widely acknowledged on both sides that the debate was vexed

by words and phrases that frequently proved to have indefinite references to different facets or aspects

of intent. Part of the problem was precision—talking about the same thing in arguments about artist's

intent. Careful and extensive explanation was necessary to make it clear exactly what about artist's

intentions was under discussion. The emphasis of debate among philosophers, historians, and critics

shifted to the identification and description of various conceptual differences within the broaderabstraction of “artist's intent.”

5 VARIATIONS OF MEANING OF ARTISTIC INTENT

In “Criticism and the Problem of Intention,” Richard Kuhns (1960) identifies 11 distinct variations ofmeaning carried by the term “intent” when it refers to artists and their work. Discussion in the following

subsections will put the 11 meanings in the context of art conservation, demonstrating that talk about

artist's intentions may refer to artistic biography or to competing theories of creativity and aesthetics.

Additionally, artist's intentions can be confused with effects that artworks create on their own. In

conservation contexts, the different meanings associated with artist's intent frame important questions

about the concepts involved and their applicability to conservation work.

Kuhns first addresses the idea that artists aim at a result, separating it into four different senses related toartists' motives and differing theories about the nature of creativity. Discussed in sections 5.1–4, these

four senses of intent—biographical motives, aims vs. outcomes, expression in media, and inherent

creative spirit—provide distinct perspectives on creativity and the artist's purposes, and they raise

important questions about setting conservation goals: Can only one of these perspectives be applied to

every case? Can we agree on how to draw from these different perspectives and apply them to each

case? What general assumptions do we make about artistic motivations and creative processes, and

how do they affect our preconceptions when we discuss artist's intent?

Kuhns next considers the artist's intention as the conveying of a meaning and divides it into three senses

of communication, articulation, and expression, discussed in sections 5.5–7. These three perspectives

on the artist's intended meanings view art as an instance of discourse—an occasion when somehow,

something is communicated to someone. Kuhns's analysis is concerned with distinguishing and

identifying various senses of intention and not with the conservator's need for useful explanation. It

remains unclear how these types of communications are constituted and what they entail. From theconservator's viewpoint, these are the deepest questions about artist's intent and the intentional fallacy:

What are the qualities and meanings in fine art that are most clearly attributable to the artist, and how do

they come from the artist into our awareness? What can we know of the artist's intent, its importance,

and the process of its communication to us? Recent work by hermeneutical philosophers to open this

vein of questioning is discussed in section 6, “The Role of the Artist.”

Kuhns continues his analysis by observing that the term “intention” is sometimes used in reference to an

artwork's overall effect. He describes three senses in which a work of art is seen as an active,intentional presence—its aesthetic expression, its appeal for reference and characterization, and its

aesthetic agency—and relates them to differing art theories, discussed in sections 5.8–10. Kuhns

associates the last and otherwise unrelated sense of artist's intent with ideas about the moral justification

of art, discussed in section 5.11. These final segments of the analysis suggest that the apparent agency

of an artwork itself can be confused with the artist's intent. Kuhns concludes that the various usages of

“intention” show how misleading it is to speak in simple terms about artist's intentions or the intentional

fallacy. For the conservator, Kuhns's analysis indexes the broad spectrum of approaches and issues

involved with artist's intent.

5.1 BIOGRAPHICAL MOTIVES

Ulterior motives can be found for any artist's creative work. He or she may be seeking fame or profit orcompetitive success in the creation of an artwork. The satisfaction of patrons, emotional catharsis, and

the desire to establish or contribute to a body of related work are typically cited as germinal artists'

intentions. These first aspects of the artist's aims are primarily biographical. When curators, critics, and

art historians approach an artwork with this perspective on artists' intentions, they are motivated by the

desire to find evidence of artistic, social, political, economic, or perhaps romantic influences in the

artist's life. These influences relate to artists' personal circumstances and careers. However, to equate an

artist's work with his or her life is to see the work and the life as a single “object” (Kris 1952). Whenconfronted with the physical nature of the work of art, the conservator is likely to find that the artist's life

and career are parenthetical to the specific characteristics of his or her particular creative products.

5.2 AIMS VS. OUTCOMES

When we think that the artist aims at a certain result, we may be thinking that the artist conceives the

work in his or her head and is confronted with the problem of realizing it in a chosen medium. This way

of thinking divides artistic creativity into two parts: purely technical skill with media follows a purelymental formulation of the work. The creative plan and purpose behind a work of art are considered

separately and distinctly from artistic expertise and the efficacy of media. The evaluation and

conservation of a work of art will require an assessment of how well the artist accomplished what he or

she set out to do.

If this perspective on creativity is adopted, pentimenti in a painting may be seen as disfigurements that

distract from the design and purpose of the artist's creative conception. They are technical errors ormedia defects that were inadequately concealed by the artist or revealed later by material deterioration.

It is seldom clear that faded color, cracking, loss of structural integrity, and other normal effects of age

and decay correlate with an artist's original aims and conceptions. Any technical flaw or unanticipated

result is a shortcoming not in accord with the artist's original intent. In conservation treatment, this

conception of the artist's intent may be used to justify a call for compensation of all damages and

artifacts of aging, whether caused by the artist's choice and use of materials and by natural deterioration

or by accidents of later circumstance. Although some conservation treatments may successfully re-create or preserve a “like new” appearance, it is often impossible to reach for an ageless and flawless

representation of the artist's initial conception.

5.3 EXPRESSION IN MEDIA

In another conception of artistic creativity, the artist is allowed a degree of suspense between aiming ata specific effect and finding its precise expression in the medium. The characteristics of the chosen

media are thought to influence the development and realization of the artist's creative idea. Under this

theory, the medium has something like a franchise on the artist's aims, granted by the artist when they

were invested into material form.

In this perspective, a pentimento becomes an incidental disclosure that reveals the course of the artist's

creative effort. As a coincidental feature of a painting, curators and conservators might treat it as a

disfigurement, subject to a degree of retouching. Or the pentimento could be accepted as a casually

significant happenstance and left as it appears. This way of thinking about creativity and intent

encourages a belief that the artist's true intentions for the work can be picked out from the interference

caused by changes in the condition of the media. With this idea in mind, curators and conservators set

treatment goals that seek to combine preservation with a lasting balance between compensation for lossand damage and the frank presentation of aged or deteriorated artist's materials. Adoption of this

perspective implies that critics and conservators will make judgments regarding the extent or degree to

which the condition of the media represents the artist's creative intent.

Tradition and practicality seem to determine how this approach is applied. Traditionally in older

artworks, some varieties of deterioration are commonly accepted despite their deviation from the artist's

original conception while other instances of decay within the same work are not. In baroque painting,

especially landscapes, there is a tendency to concede the appearance of brown paints that we knowwere originally green, but the pale transparent hues of paints once tinted with fugitive red lakes

immediately suggest color reinforcement. In practice, the desire to keep compensation to a minimum

tends to allow only the most efficient efforts to unveil aspects of the artist's intent. In the baroque

paintings, there is compelling economy of treatment in a decision to touch up red accents and leave

browned landscape backgrounds alone.

5.4 INHERENT CREATIVE SPIRIT

Another conception of artistic creativity maintains that artists have intentions that are broadly purposive,not just specifically purposeful in the same sense as the previous two cases. Artistic creativity appearsas a personal quality, like fertility, and artworks are produced when creative persons consort with

governable materials. In the creative moment, artistic spirit and physical substance merge andincorporate. From this perspective, artists and their media share equal responsibility for bringing forth

their aims and inclinations.

With this approach to artist's intent and creativity in mind, curators, critics, art historians, andconservators view the choice, use, and physical characteristics of the artist's materials to have

significance equal to the artistic effectiveness of their control. Ideas about intent are focused on theartist's creative participation with the media. In painting, the concept of pentimenti becomes irrelevant.

All the paint has equal importance and authority in any effect, whatever layer, whether carefullycontrived or haphazardly applied. Conservation plans and treatment goals will prioritize preservation,

protection from circumstantial damage, and the retardation of decay. Only the most disfiguring lossesdue to insult or accident become candidates for compensation.

Modern and contemporary art attracts this perspective on artistic work because it offers a liberal

perspective on artistic purpose and accepts virtually anything into the realm of artist's materials. Livingcontemporary artists apply this perspective to their own efforts when they emphasize the importance of

their participation with media and their freedom to choose materials. In a distorted adaptation, thisemphasis can suggest that the chosen materials have extraneous characteristics not pertaining to the

artist's endeavors and accomplishments.

When the artist's intent is defined by participation with materials, it is subject to their fate. A hallmark of

this perspective is the belief that the artist's participation is necessary for genuine compensation. In theabsence of the artist, a decision for compensation admits a need for pretense because the critical

element of the artist's participation is lacking. Any damage or loss could be deemed fundamentallybeyond compensation because a piece of the artist's original participation is distorted or missing.

5.5 THE ARTIST'S SPEAKING

In thinking that the artist aims at a certain result, we may be thinking of meanings that the artist wishes to

convey. In one sense, artists are interlocutors who say something to beholders through their work. Thisway of thinking about the artist's intended meaning makes an analogy between artwork and language,

specifically literature, where a text may be thought to be a form of the author's speaking. In thephilosophy of literary criticism and interpretation, this assumption is highly questionable because textscan draw their voices and meanings from realms outside the author's personal domain. Literary works

appear in the medium of written language, but a work of fine art, although it may be considered a text ofsome kind, is not a work of language.

In this way of thinking about artist's intent, language metaphors are common. We may want to “hear” or“read” what the artist is “saying” to us, but we are forced to discuss the perceived messages in our own

words. For conservators, critics, and art historians, the intentional fallacy clearly comes into play whenwe use our own perceptions and phrases to put the artist's meanings into words—meanings that are, bynature, unspoken in the work of art.

5.6 THE ARTIST'S TELLING

In another sense of conveyed meaning, artists are prime beholders uniquely situated to be idealinterpreters of the meaning that their work conveys. The artist is an expositor of the work rather than an

interlocutor. The situation of the previous sense is strangely reversed. The artwork itself expressessomething, but it is the artist who tells beholders what he or she means it to say.

Contemporary art lends itself to this approach in the form of consultation with living artists. A typical

example of the methodology is provided by Davenport (1995), who reports the results of treatment-specific consultations, artist interviews, and artists' written responses to a questionnaire. Davenport

acknowledges that competing theories of art and creativity can determine how much authority is given toartists for interpreting and explaining their work. Results from eight artists show that they embrace ordecline this authority idiosyncratically, with substantive vacillation in their individual replies. The following

excerpts illustrate the range of variation. Adrian Piper: “I don't feel that I have privileged access to theultimate meaning of my work. I think that is determined by social context and history and so forth”

(quoted in Davenport 1995, 46). Petah Coyne: “There's a period when I'm connected with a piece, atleast four or five years. Then at a certain point you become almost in awe of it, and you don't know

how you could get back into that flow” (p. 50). Fred Sandback: “Who should be the primary source ofdetermining how a work should look over time? Well, sure, I should be. This is my game and I want it

played my way. But the question becomes interesting as I begin to fade out of the picture” (p. 51).Investigations like Davenport's make it clear that there is no consensus among living artists regarding anystatus as privileged or ideal expositors of their work.

There is an obvious proprietary element in the relationship between artists and their work, and there arestatutory laws about copyright and authorship that protect artists' interests in this respect. However,artists' rights are difficult to apply to the meaning or the interpretation of their work. Psychological

properties, moods, and meanings that the artist wishes to convey or explain are not fixed or objective.The artist's personal internal states and understandings are subjective, and to be shared they must be

apprehended and recognized subjectively by each individual beholder.

When artists choose to dictate the meaning, sense, and import of their work, they assume the burden of

proof in defending their assertions. Their choice and use of media may fail to support their aspirations orcease to sustain their immediate achievements. History may reveal unrecognized circumstances oruncover surprising horizons. Beholders can judge the artist's claims against their own apprehension and

choose how much to be convinced of the artist's credibility in his or her stated purposes. A decision togrant artists superior authority about the disposition, meaning, and purpose of their work diminishes or

denies the relative roles played by their media, by art historical contexts, and by beholders'apprehensions. Conservators, art historians, and critics are not obliged to take the artist's assertions or

explanations without question.

5.7 THE ARTIST'S EXPRESSIVE CHARACTER

Another way of thinking about how an artist's meanings and purposes are conveyed considers his or herwork to represent an expressive system. This approach maintains that artists' personalities and

worldviews are reflected by their work and represented in it. The mind behind the work is a necessarypart of the work. We recognize artists' expressive systems or individual styles in the same way that werecognize and categorize people's personalities and attitudes through their body language and manner of

speech. Seemingly anthropomorphic remarks associating attributes of an artwork with the mood orpersonality of its artist usually come from this perspective. Claims that Vincent van Gogh's work

expresses agitation or that Jan Vermeer's work expresses serenity rely on this view.

Personal intuition, psychological insight, and sympathetic understanding all play a part in recognizing the

artist's expressive character or style. However, recognition is not the primary problem faced by theconservator concerned with the physical work of art. To make decisions about compensation and thetreatment of material decay that are sensitive to the artist's expressive character, it is necessary to

understand the scope and function of this “mind behind the work.” For conservators, the deepestunderlying questions about artist's intent are concerned with its scope and function and ask for

clarification of the role of the artist in the artwork.

5.8 THE ARTWORK'S AESTHETIC EXPRESSION

In art-related discussion, it is sometimes said that the artwork itself exhibits an intention, related byKuhns to organicist, Gestalt, and idealist theories of art. In a variety of common contexts, intentions of

the artwork can be confused with artist's intent. These next three perspectives on intention in artdemonstrate how and why attributes of art itself are accidentally ascribed to artists.

In the first of these theoretical perspectives, the work of art is seen as a purposive organic whole. Itencompasses a complex but necessary interrelationship of parts, similar to that in living things. Like an

organism, it is a kind of individual, and as a singular entity, it seems to be composed for some end. Itembodies some knowledge or truth or meaning it aims to express. Kuhns (1960, 9) quotes the

observation from Immanuel Kant's Critique of Judgment (1790) that we can make the fundamentalnature of art intelligible to ourselves only by postulating a source of will and purpose. Objectively, an

artwork is an inanimate thing, but there is an overwhelming tendency to find an expressive entity withinit. Artist's intent has a reflexive relationship with the nature of art. This approach to art interpretation haslittle direct bearing on art conservation except to suggest the difficulty of distinguishing the artist's part

from the whole of art.

As an older theoretical approach, this perspective on art reflects the contemporary hermeneutical idea

that a work of art is a potential event of discourse, dependent upon a beholder to happen (Gadamer1975; Ricoeur 1981). When beholders bring their receptive tendencies to art, communication occurs.Because beholders are necessary to realize and fulfill an artwork's existence, comprehensive

conservation measures will enhance access to it. This is why a cave on the dark side of the moon is notan appropriate answer to the desperate preservation needs of the most fragile works of art.

5.9 THE ARTWORK'S APPEAL FOR REFERENCE ANDCHARACTERIZATION

In Kuhns's application of Gestalt art theory, a work of art may be thought to have an intention because

it makes analytic demands. It makes a claim on its beholders by inviting or asking for characterizationand classification. The power of an artwork to make an appeal for relevance is determined by its ability

to point to some reality common to a beholder and itself (Gadamer 1975; Ricoeur 1981). For theconservator and art historian, the artwork's demand for a common ground of reference can bedangerously seductive. Han van Meegeren's forged Vermeers, for example, had a 1930s and 1940s

look, including a near-likeness of Marlene Dietrich unquestioned by many experts at that time (Walden1985).

The situation of the experts who accepted van Meegeren's Vermeers was similar to that of ProfessorHauser of Berlin, who in 1911 restored the painting once popularly known as Rembrandt's Mill. WhenThe Mill (now in the National Gallery of Art) was purchased in England by the American collector

P.A.B. Widener, his dealer sent the famous painting to Hauser before importing it to the United States.Like most turn-of-the-century restorers, critics, and art historians, Hauser had definite preconceptions

about how Rembrandt paintings should look. It was understood that Hauser would improve thepainting's condition by making it conform to the appearance of many other paintings that shared broad

attributions to Rembrandt in that period (Wheelock 1977).

In a broader sense, historical periods, aesthetic styles, and genres of art have purposes that go beyondthose of individual artists. Panofsky uses the term “intention” in this way in connection with his thesis that

each historical period in Western civilization had its own special outlooks, assumptions, attitudes, andconcerns. For example, he maintains that the development of perspective in the painting of the Middle

Ages was intended to situate previously unconnected images in a unifying context (Panofsky [1927]1991). Baxandall specifies this meaning of intention in art (1985, 41–73), using specific artists' works to

illustrate the sense in which intention refers to “a picture's relation to its circumstances” (p. 72). Thevarious purposes of period, cultural style, and genre are easily equated with artists' individual efforts.

5.10 THE ARTWORK'S AESTHETIC AGENCY

In its reference to Kuhns's analysis, idealist art theory maintains that a work of art in itself possesses themeans and ability to act toward particular effects. For theologically inclined idealists, this quality may

represent a metaphysical power or the presence of divine will or inspiration. Ritual or religious worksmay be thought to possess specific qualities in this respect. Beyond spiritual effects, works of art are

also credited with emotional effects, psychological effects, social and political effects, and in morematerialistic senses, optical, visual, and simply decorative, ornamental effects. This is the most common

and least specific reference of the term “intention” when applied to works of art. In this sense we saythat an artwork is meant to be displayed or seen in one way or another—that it “works” better in acertain light, on a pedestal, in a period frame, or in a particular interpretive environment or setting.

Taken collectively, the overall effects created by a particular work of art denote its aesthetic intentions.The highly variable nature of the effects created by a single artwork suggest the difficulty of discussing its

aesthetic intention in an exacting way. In a section of Kuhns's essay following the completion of hisanalysis, he works toward an improved definition of the artwork's intention by offering the concept of

“focal effect” to summarize the most constant and sustained of the many and variable effects created byan individual work of art.

Kuhns's attempt to reconsider and rehabilitate notions of intention is weakened because he does not use

the term “aesthetic intention” to refer to the intentions of a work of art. Instead, in a few potentiallyambiguous passages he refers to the intent of the artwork as “artistic intention.” Consider the confusion

created in this paragraph about the subject matter of art criticism:

However, we are concerned with the intention of the work in the proper artistic sense of

intention: what the work sustains as a certain kind of experience, its focal effect. Theartistic intention may or may not be what the maker was aiming at. His intention,psychologically speaking, may have been quite different from what the work effects. But it

is the artistic intention that matters for criticism. It may be that the intention of the work iswhat the maker would inevitably effect with his handling of the medium because of social

and cultural factors, but this, too, is extraneous to criticism (Kuhns 1960, 22).

Dictionaries support the reference of “artistic” to both art and artists, while references of “aesthetic” aregiven to the theory and philosophy of art and beauty, beauty itself, and people's sensitivity to art and

beauty. In our ordinary language, all of an artwork's different effects can be called either aestheticeffects or artistic effects. The potential for ambiguity and confusion in Kuhns's paragraph demonstrates

that we have no universal, commonly understood habit of language for distinguishing between ouraesthetic impressions of meaning, grace, and quality and our appreciation of the artistic skills,

techniques, and mastery that create them. However, this distinction is critical in art professionaldiscourse. When we wish to turn our attention strictly to artist's actions, deeds, and efforts, ourreferences to artist's intent need to be clearly and consistently defined. Careless or confused attribution

of an artwork's focal effects to the artist instead of the work is one of the greatest pitfalls in discussingartist's intent.

In any discussion of the artist's intent, as conservators we should be clear whether we are talking aboutartistic characteristics, the strategy and facility of the artist's work, or aesthetic characteristics, the

meaning and beauty that may emerge from effects created by a work of art. A helpful clarificationcomes with an analogy between the artist and a puppeteer: hand motions, pulling of strings, and othertechnical tricks of puppetry are more easily distinguished from the evocative nature and drama of the

puppet's dance. If we consistently and specifically use the word “artistic” to be indicative of artists, andnot of art in general, our use of the word “aesthetic” will be strengthened in its reference to the effects ofartworks themselves. Failure to make this distinction is the most frequent cause of ambiguous or inexactreferences when issues of intent are raised.

5.11 MORAL EFFECT OF THE ARTWORK

Kuhns finds one last sense of intention in art, which does not fit into any of the previous categories or

examples. In this sense, a work of art in all its artistic and aesthetic qualities is subject to evaluation ofwhat it ought to do or be. It has an intention in that it exhibits moral and intellectual content. The

purpose, meaning, and value of an artwork are judged by the end it achieves and/or the ends for whichit may have been created. In the case of Robert Mapplethorpe's Self-Portrait, 1978 (1978, estate of

Robert Mapplethorpe), the moral intentions of both the artwork and the artist became subjects ofagitated debate.

Conservators confront issues of moral intent when faced with artworks that were altered to improve

their modesty. In past periods of prudery, drapery was added to nudes and carnal scenes were veiledby the addition of landscape elements or other accouterments. Decisions to retain or remove these

additions may involve assessment of their artistic, aesthetic, and moral intentions and the moral intentionsof conservators themselves (Beck 1993). Surface cleaning and removal of aged coatings may invite

consideration of moral intent when treatment reveals hidden details, modeling or flesh tones suggestiveof licentious meaning. The moral character of portrait subjects and other depicted persons, their piety,nobility, rationality, and so forth, may also become the subjects of this meaning of intent.

5.12 RESULT OF KUHNS'S ANALYSIS

When it was published, Kuhns's description of the meanings and references of “intent” was more asummary than a complete revelation. Although it provided necessary and welcome analysis and

contributed to clarification of the issues, it did not attempt to achieve any final resolution of the debatebetween intentionalists and anti-intentionalists. Its importance was in providing reference to thecontinuing variety and proliferation of scholarly articles on this subject. Attempts to discredit and discard

the intentional fallacy continued to emphasize its ambiguity (Lyas 1983).

Exhaustive summaries of intentionalist and anti-intentionalist positions, with detailed analyses and

discussions, were published by Juhl (1980) and Margolis (1980). These in-depth studies consolidatedthe issues, leaving bare several core questions: What, if any, is the importance of artist's intent? What

can be known with certainty about it? And how do we come to know it? Ambiguity surrounding artist'sintent became recognized not just as a word and reference problem but as a manifestation of uncertaintyabout the fundamental nature of a work of art and the artist's role in it. After 35 years of scholarly

attention, questions about artist's intent boiled down to questions about the essential nature of art itself.

6 THE ROLE OF THE ARTIST

Confusion and ambiguity surrounding artist's intent and the intentional fallacy represent a lack of clarity

about the role of the artist in the artwork. If the essential nature of an artwork's existence were betterexplained and understood, the role of the artist would not be so vague and debatable. Very few writers

have made broadly constructive contributions to solving the problems presented by this issue.

Artists from the past are enshrined in our cultural memory. We often refer to individual artworks by theartist's name: “Did you see the Picasso? I preferred the Cézanne.” Somehow we see a personality,

however ambiguous, behind every work of art. Andrew Wyeth's paintings of Helga speak to us abouthim and his relationship to her as much as they do about her, the manifest subject. We do not mean to

speak anthropomorphically when we say an artwork expresses tenderness or anger or melancholia. Wemight as well call them “artist's works” to show how closely we identify these types of creations withtheir creators. The role of the artist in the artwork emanates more strongly than other factors that

contribute to the essential nature of works of art.

Published discussions of artist's intentions frequently address the nature of creativity and artists'

interaction with media. The bearing of history on the interpretation of artworks is also an occasionalconsideration in discussions of artist's intent, but the role of media and the role of historical contexts are

seldom collated with it. This disjunction occurs, in part, because the language we use does not lend itselfto discussing these things together. It seems awkward or obscure to speak of the media's intentions orthe intentions of the social and historical context in a work of art. Even in the light of Kuhns's analysis,

the word “intention,” as we are sometimes tempted to use it, often fails us.

It is possible, however, to define a meaning and apply the idea of artist's intent to art conservation work

in a way that correlates methodologies in history, science, and connoisseurship. A deep and deliberateunderstanding of the role of the artist in the artwork is necessary. In the past two decades, philosophers

working in contemporary hermeneutics provided new explanations and refreshed perspectives onefforts in this direction.

6.1 AUTONOMY OF THE WORK OF ART: THE PROCESS ANDPHENOMENON OF DISTANCIATION

Paul Ricoeur's philosophy of criticism and the text and Hans-Georg Gadamer's aesthetics elevate anolder proposition that the effects and interpretations arising from a work of art are autonomous,

separate from the artist. Ricoeur claims in “The Hermeneutical Function of Distanciation” (1981) thathuman discourse is transformed when it becomes fixed or objectified in a literary work or a work of art.

When discourse takes the form of a work, it escapes from the here-and-now situation of talkingtogether face to face. It occurs in an alternative mode and receives a new status—the status of a text.Ricoeur calls this transformation “distanciation” to indicate that texts transcend their native

circumstances, moving beyond them into territories where they are circumscribed by new horizons.

As works of discourse, the artwork and the literary work experience distanciation in four ways. First,

when a piece of art or literature comes out as a work, it meets with readers or beholders and it isemancipated from the immediate references and shared reality of live communication. Second, works of

fine art and literature become decontextualized in time and space. They can be, and often are, removedfrom the places and the social and historical conditions of their creation. Third, decontextualizationallows them to appear in foreign circumstances, where they are subject to new, perhaps unanticipated

perspectives. As a result, they are opened to series of unrestricted readings or beholdings in which new

and different meanings can be found. Fourth and finally, when a work of art leaves its creator's hand,

the actual act of writing or painting or sculpting it becomes eclipsed by its own self-evidence.Distanciation explains both the phenomenon and the process by which a work of art becomes

autonomous from its creator, the author or artist.

The effects of distanciation suggest that when we perceive the artist in a work of art, it is the artworkitself that is communicating with us about the artist; the discourse happens between the artwork and the

beholder. The artist's meaning is covered by what the artwork can convey about the circumstance anddisposition of its own creation. For the conservator, the importance of distanciation is the suggestion

that the aesthetic effects of an artwork can function independently from the artist's intent while at thesame time locating the ground of reference for artist's intent in the artwork at hand. The perspective

afforded by the concept of distanciation, where the artwork has a reflexive relationship with the artist'sintent, is an improvement over the anti-intentionalism of the 1950s and 1960s, which would admit only

intentions proved by their effective results. We are free to find the sources of our speculation about theartist's intent in the artwork and elsewhere without being obligated to endorse their authority overaesthetic effects.

6.2 THE DESIGNATION OF ARTISTIC INDIVIDUALITY

From a hermeneutical perspective, the apparent agency in a work of art refers not to the artist but to the

artwork's own singular pattern of identity. “A work is given a unique configuration which likens it to anindividual and which may be called its style” (Ricoeur 1981, 136). An artwork's individuality is what

draws anthropomorphic remarks about emotions, moods, or desires that it seems to possess andconvey.

Ricoeur observes that artistic style is the active principle of individuation. Employment of artistic styleproduces the individual artwork, and in so doing, it retroactively designates the artist. “Artist” says morethan maker or producer; he or she becomes an artist by producing a work of art. The artist and the

artwork are realized contemporaneously.

The singular configuration of the work and the singular configuration of the artist are strictly

correlative. Man individuates himself in producing individual works. The signature is themark of this relation (Ricoeur 1981, 138).

Here is the symbol of the meaning in art that is attributable to the artist. The signature represents the

stamp of artistic style, the accomplishment of individuality in a work of art—both the individuality of theartist and the individuality of the work itself. The role of the artist is to enfranchise the artwork with an

individual identity. While it is the artwork that bears all meanings to the beholder, it is the artist whoshared with it the process of identification and delivered into it the individual means to speak for itself.

The artist's creative work endows the art materials with its evidence, making them into the venue forindividuality and meaning that we call a work of art.

The correlated individuality of artists and their artworks allows the process of attribution. The artistic

expression of individuality also permits the identification and characterization of otherwise unrecognizedor unknown artists like the Master of Flemalle and other nameless but influential Old Masters, some of

whom are distinguished by one work alone (Davies 1972). In addition, the integrity of this distinguishingindividuality is essential to the concept of art forgery. Any imitation or copy, no matter how perfectly

modeled in the manner of another's hand, never properly bears a borrowed signature or claims an

accurate attribution to the maker of the copied model.

6.3 LIMITATIONS OF APPEAL TO ARTIST'S INTENT

The personality, focus, and individuality of the artist have strong and mutual correlations with what isexpressed in any work of fine art, but for clear consideration of the artist's investment in the artwork,what is expressed and how it is expressed should not be confused. Matters of affect and iconography

and the moods and meanings of works of art are what is expressed, and they are unwittingly credited tothe artist alone. More accurately, moods and meanings, cues and symbols, the significance of the

composition and the like are ascribed to the artwork as a whole. The artwork in its entirety carries thecorrelation between what is expressed and how it is expressed in the material result of the artist's

creative work. Although the autonomy of artworks from their makers is by no means proven or takenfor granted in all quarters, explanations of it are clear and tend to be persuasive. Nevertheless, there is a

strong impulse to assign great weight to artist's ideas and explanations about their work, whether thoseideas are clearly and specifically expressed or only dimly inferred.

In art conservation contexts, when artist's intentions come into consideration the challenge is to judge

their importance and applicability in each case. The ideas of distanciation and autonomy suggest that theauthority of the artist's role is inexorably relative to concurrent roles played by media, by art historical

contexts, and by beholders' apprehensions. Interpretations of emotional, psychological, and intellectualmeanings and purposes in art have only conditional associations with the artist's intent in these respects.Any apparent communication along these lines happens between the artwork and the beholder.

Conservators can find the significance of artist's intent in the ability of an artwork to communicate aboutthe individuality of its artist and the circumstances of its own creation. In the work of art conservation,

the least provisional and most secure associations can be made between the artist's intent and his or herindividual skills and techniques, strategy, facility, and mastery of media in producing the work of art.

7 CONCLUSIONS: THE APPLICATION OF ARTIST'S INTENTIONS INCONSERVATION WORK

The technologically defined idea of following the artist's intentions did not survive as an authoritative

principle of art conservation; it was scientifically doctrinaire and lacked scope and rigor. Its narrowdefinition placed it at odds with conventions of connoisseurship, the mortality of materials, and historical

explanation. Critical debate surrounding the intentional fallacy illustrates significant obstacles to definingand judging artist's intent, and philosophical explanation of the autonomy of artworks contradicts itsauthority over the artwork as a whole. In art conservation, following the artist's intentions remains

attractive only in its reference to evaluating and considering the characteristic individuality of artistsexhibited in their work.

A specific branch of the literature of analytical research in art conservation is devoted to describing andmeasuring particular artist's distinctive methods and materials. Measurable, material things such as thechoice and preparation of media, size, and shape and order of brush strokes, even idiosyncrasies of

drawing, modeling, and line—all represent artistic intent in a limited and specific sense. In the narrowedfocus on the distinctive use of materials in a particular work, psychological insights, social and

intellectual purposes, and aesthetic effects are not addressed. The artist's intent, in this individual and

characteristic sense, can be interpreted systematically in the individual stylistic aspects of an artwork,specifically in technical matters of distinctive artistic style.

Appeals to artists' intentions through this type of characteristic individuality can find a useful role in art

conservation only if the artist's specific investment in the work of art is not equated with broader,nonindividual connotations of aesthetic style, historical period, genre, and oeuvre or equated with the

remains of the artist's original materials. The artist's investment is expressed in the choice, preparation,and application of the media, not in the nature of the media itself. This is the explicit reference that

conservators can maintain with professional expertise to save discussions of artists' intentions fromfalling into ambiguity. However, its application to conservation work requires more than the scientific

delineation of an artist's style.

The history of debate among conservators, critics, and art historians over artist's intent illustrates thenecessity of an interdisciplinary approach. Historical knowledge and interpretation can inform the

relationship between conservation treatment needs and perspectives on the disposition of the artist'swork. Connoisseurship can suggest the desirability, quality, and extent of treatment necessary for

maintaining the individuality of the artist and the individuality of the work and placing them together in ameaningful context. Scientific analysis of the physical structure and chemical nature of the artwork canindicate how the artist's use of materials and their present condition pertain to the selection of

conservation treatment goals and technologies.

The interdisciplinary task of applying artists' intentions to conservation work requires exacting

contributions from historians, critics, and connoisseurs, philosophers of art, scientists, and conservatorsalike. Purposeful discussion of the role of the artist in the artwork requires careful language and

deliberate understanding of the essential nature of art. Precise language, commonly understood, is thefirst step in this direction. The importance of unambiguous language is paramount. Clear language amongthe disciplines will be necessary to describe how the artist's individuality and the individuality of his or

her work can be fulfilled and maintained in conjunction with three other factors—the historical contextsin which the artwork is documented and perceived; the traditions of connoisseurship that give it

reference; and the physical and temporal characteristics of the media employed. Artists' intentions canbe investigated and applied to art conservation issues in terms of the distinctive characteristics that

determine the individuality of artists and their work. The productive application of this specificconception of artist's intent will account for and acknowledge that the artist's investment functions inconcert with these other factors to give an artwork a meaningful and lasting life.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author gratefully acknowledges the editors of this journal and the anonymous reviewers whoprovided extensive comments and constructive criticism on several successive drafts of this article. Their

careful readings and thoughtful advice encouraged necessary improvements in its style, content, andorganization.

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AUTHOR INFORMATION

STEVEN W. DYKSTRA received a B.A. in liberal arts from Bucknell University in 1973. He wasprivately trained in paintings conservation at the Western Center for the Conservation of Fine Art and

Olin Conservation. In 1984–85 he was a national Museum Act master apprentice intern in theconservation department of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In 1988 he received an M.A. inindividualized studies from the George Washington University for research in the history, philosophy,and anthropology of art resulting in a master's paper entitled, “Understanding Controversy in Fine Arts

Conservation.” He works as a museum specialist/registrar in the Art in Embassies Program, U.S.Department of State, and maintains a private practice in paintings conservation in Washington, D.C.Address: 1524 Kingman Place, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20005-3709.

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Copyright © 1996 American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works