The Rationale of Restoration

In The Test of Time I endorsed what then seemed a decidedly old-fashioned view about the interpretation of works of art. I The view was, crudely put, that correct understanding and identification of a painting or a poem cannot be detached from reference to its author's mind, and that in the kind of ideal case around which the theory of art has to be constructed, it will be wrong to think of the work as liable to interpretative change over time or as admitting to interpretations not coincident with its maker's. Evidently, the resulting view privileges historical understanding of art and is most exigent in regard to the art we have inherited from the past. It is a view to which both Hume and Kant, to name no others, lent their voices. Even so, the position is not to everyone's taste, and while nothing will move determined reformists, as I shall call opponents of tradition, it would be pleasing to find additional means of swaying the undecided. The argument takes this form: I start by drawing attention to a way of talking we have about a number of the arts that looks well entrenched and at first sight somewhat paradoxical. So, it is a practice that requires interpretation. Not only interpretation, but also explanation. We do not just want to understand it without incoherence, we also want to know what might make it rational given our firm attachment to it. I go on to argue that no rival to the historicist position on interpretation can provide an answer, and also that the psychologized, artist-oriented version of historicism I favored is peculiarly apt to do so. Finally, against this background I briefly discuss two recent manifestations of the revisionist stance.