Do scientific researches on artworks end up with the alteration of authorial intention?

• Akiba Fuminori

  Graduate School of Information Science, Nagoya University

Bibliographic Information

Other Title

• 芸術作品の科学的調査は作者の意図を更新することに終わるのか？
• ゲイジュツ サクヒン ノ カガクテキ チョウサ ワ サクシャ ノ イト オ コウシン スル コトニ オワル ノ カ

Abstract

In 2004, The National Research Institute for Cultural Properties Tokyo announced astonishing results of the scientific research on OGATA Korin's Folding Screen with Red and White Plums. According to the report there were many discoveries previously invisible to unequipped eyes not only of us but also of trained art historians of Japanese art, but among these discoveries the most surprising one to the art historians was the fact that Korin did not use gold leaf for its background but only coated it with gold-dust and a kind of vegetable dye called Kariyasu. They were forced to alter their interpretation on the authorial intention and concluded that the intention of the author was to make believe his audience. But does the significance of the scientific research or technical examination end up with the mere alteration of authorial intention? Is it enough to shift the interpretative responsibility onto the silent author? To make this point clear I examined whether the discovery can be exhaustedly interpreted with the frame of "partial and moderate intentionalism". After comparing the interpretation of pentimento revealed in Johannes Vermeer's Young Woman Reading a Letter at an Open Window and of gold-like depiction in Nicolas Poussin's The Adoration of the Golden Calf with Korin's case, it becomes clear that the real significance of the scientific research is in the revelation of some wrong interpretative assumptions with which art historians of Japanese art interpret their object, especially their arbitrary use of genre. In addition it also revealed the prevalence of another interpretative method which does not aim at authorial intention. It is the method that treats every single point on a painting as perfectly equivalent material with no regard to genre, subject, motif, nationality, and authorial intention.

Journal

• Journal of Human Environmental Studies

  Journal of Human Environmental Studies 3 (1), 27-32, 2005

  Society for Human Environmental Studies

Keywords

• scientific research
• technical examination
• works of art
• intention
• author

Details

• CRID: 1390001205297274624
• NII Article ID: 130004953250
• NII Book ID: AA11879150
• DOI: 10.4189/shes.3.1_27
• ISSN: 18837611
• ISSN: 13485253
• NDL BIB ID: 7425796
• Web Site: http://id.ndl.go.jp/bib/7425796
• Web Site: https://ndlsearch.ndl.go.jp/books/R000000004-I7425796
• Data Source:
  • JaLC
  • NDL
  • Crossref
  • CiNii Articles
  • KAKEN
• Abstract License Flag: Disallowed