In Response to Brandon's Question

Brandon poses an interesting question as to who or what should be to blame when an artwork is not conveyed in the intentional manner to the viewer. From one perspective it is easily argued that the person who is most at fault for the lack of understanding of the piece would be the creator of the piece him/her self, the artist. If the artist creates an artwork with a specific intention of an emotion to be conveyed or a specific content to be seen he/she must fashion the piece in such a manner that it portrays this intended idea to the viewer. If the viewer does not understand what the artist is trying to convey by looking at the piece, it is then a failure of the artist. On the other hand, it could easily be argued that if a viewer does not understand the artwork it is not the fault of the artist, but rather the viewer is at most blame. Here the assumption is that the artist put his/her all into the work in attempt to convey a specific emotion or content and that other viewers are able to make this recognition when looking at the piece. If one particular viewer looks at the piece but does not understand what the artist was attempting to convey through the piece, it is his/her own fault because the viewer is not educated enough in the world of art to understand the meaning behind the piece and all that the artist was trying to convey. In order to truly understand why an artwork is not successful in conveying what it was intending to, both perspectives need to be taken into consideration. Usually when an artwork is not understood it is a combination of the artist not being able to properly convey his/her intent and the viewer not having a strong background on the subject at hand. Could there be a case where a particular artwork is not understood by anyone? Or would it be argued that so long as the artist him/her self understood the piece, it is still capable of conveying the intended emotion or content?