How Do You Understand an Artwork? by Amir Amin

The other day, someone asked on Threads:

"How do you understand an artwork just by looking at it?"

It was not the first time I had come across this question.

I doubt it will be the last.

Perhaps that is what makes it such an interesting question.

Every exhibition I have been to, every gallery I have worked with, and every conversation I have had with visitors somehow circles back to this same uncertainty. 

Many people genuinely want to appreciate art, but they are afraid they are doing it the wrong way. They think there is a correct answer hidden somewhere within the artwork, and unless they discover it, they have somehow failed.

As someone who studied Fine Art, I was fortunate enough to be taught different ways of reading an artwork. One of the earliest methods I remember learning—if my memory serves me right, sometime during my second semester—was Edmund Burke Feldman's Method of Art Criticism.

Photo of Edmund Burke Feldman (Photo credit: Google)

It is a fairly straightforward framework consisting of four stages:

Description.

What do you see?

Analysis.

How are the visual elements organised?

Interpretation.

What could the artwork be saying?

Judgment.

How successful is the artwork in communicating what it intends to communicate?

Of course, Feldman is only one among many. There is Panofsky's iconography, Greenberg's Formalism, Berger's contextual approach, Freud's psychoanalytic reading, and countless others. Every theory offers another way of looking at art.

They are incredibly useful, especially for students, writers, curators and historians.

But perhaps not everyone needs to begin there.

Most people who walk into a gallery are not looking to write a critical essay.

They simply want to enjoy the artworks.

I remember the first time someone asked me how to read an artwork. I immediately mansplained Feldman's Method of Criticism, thinking that if I explained it the way my lecturers did, people would understand art better. 

Boy, was I wrong.

I realised that whenever I explained it that way, people somehow began to think that art was something exclusive.

You needed to be in the know... to know. 

Now, I rarely explain any of these theories.

Instead, I usually tell them there are three ways I personally approach art.

Azaikmal explaining his work to visitors. (Photo credit: Noor Zahran)

The first is to understand the artwork.

This is probably the most familiar approach.

You look at its colours, composition, materials, techniques, symbols, and visual language. You observe how the artist has arranged everything within the picture plane. Slowly, you begin to notice relationships between forms, colours, textures and spaces. Eventually, these visual decisions begin to form ideas.

The more familiar you become with the language of art, the easier it becomes to recognise what an artwork might be trying to communicate.

Not because the artwork suddenly becomes easier, but because your eyes become more attentive.

Luqman Ismail explaining his work to visitors. (Photo credit: Noor Zahran)

The second approach is to experience the artwork.

I think this is where many people underestimate themselves.

Not every artwork is meant to be understood intellectually.

Some artworks simply ask to be experienced.

Perhaps a painting reminds you of someone you have lost.

Perhaps an installation makes you uncomfortable.

Perhaps an abstract work reminds you of nothing in particular, yet somehow leaves you feeling calm.

None of these responses are wrong.

Sometimes the artwork is merely a doorway.

It opens something within you—memories, emotions, questions or experiences that already existed.

In that sense, the artwork is not giving you meaning.

It is helping you discover your own.

For me, many artworks fall under this category.

Whether they are figurative paintings, abstract works, installations or performances, they often speak less to the intellect and more to lived experience.

A visitor walking past Istiqlal, an artwork by Amir Amin (Photo credit: Amir Amin)

The third approach is where I find the most rewarding encounters.

To understand and experience the artwork at the same time.

You recognise the artist's visual language, understand the context in which the work was made, appreciate the decisions behind its composition, and yet still allow yourself to respond emotionally.

It is no longer just about decoding meaning.

It becomes a conversation between the artist's experiences and your own.

Perhaps that is what makes art so special.

Unlike mathematics, where there is usually one correct answer, art allows room for multiple truths.

The artist may begin the conversation, but every viewer continues it differently.

That is why two people can stand in front of the same artwork and walk away with entirely different thoughts.

Neither is necessarily wrong.

They simply arrived there through different experiences.

So, how do you understand an artwork just by looking at it?

Perhaps the answer is that sometimes you don't.

Sometimes you understand it.

Sometimes you experience it.

And if you are lucky, you do both.

I think that is enough.

After all, appreciating art has never been about finding the right answer.

It has always been about learning to look a little longer.