How do we ascribe meaning to a particular work of art?

Art is all about interpretation, a TOK concept. It’s a sort of communication between the artist and the audience where the artist shares a message, often cryptic, and the audience analyses it to find the meaning hidden in it. This question is quite a paradox, artists initially do ascribe some sort of a meaning into the work of art but so does the audience. When open to interpretation, the audience are free to come up with their own versions of the what the art means.

Let’s talk about the pianist and composer Brahms. Brahms and his compositions are often viewed as a symbol of “unrequited love”. But why? Anyone that’s listening to Brahms, unknown of the story attached to it would think his songs are sad but pleasing to listen to. They can come up with theories for what happened, but only those that know the story behind it would understand the meaning. Brahms was in love with his best friend’s wife, he didn’t act on it directly but used music as a medium to try showcase his displays of affection. So this meaning ascribed requires some background knowledge on the composer, however to those unaware of it will resort to coming up with different opinions, values and interpretations of the composed pieces.

The subjectivity of art is what that makes it unique. An artwork isn’t the same for one person as it is for the other. How we can enjoy it depends on the values we hold for it. To ascribe just one meaning to an artwork would be a selfish sin.