You’re staring at a painting in a gallery and see a symbol of love. In the same image, your friend sees a symbol of war. To settle the debate you Google the work only to learn that the artist had neither topic in mind when they created it. Was anyone wrong? Or, perhaps, is everyone right? Should this change how you see the painting, or should your personal interpretation be safe from this new information? This animation from TED-Ed traces the history of this ongoing debate over art and intention, exploring the contending viewpoints of philosophers and art critics such as Monroe Beardsley, Walter Benn Michaels and Noël Carroll, each of them – either ironically or appropriately – with their own unique perspective.
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Death
Even in modern secular societies, belief in an afterlife persists. Why?
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Nature and landscape
Take a serene hike through an ancient forest, inspired by a Miyazaki masterpiece
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Design and fashion
The mundane becomes mesmerising in this deep dive into segmented displays
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Physics
A song of ice, fire and jelly – exploring the physics and history of the trumpet
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Architecture
Tour the European architecture that dreamed of a wondrous, fictitious China
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Spirituality
Trek alongside spiritual pilgrims on a treacherous journey across Pakistan
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Thinkers and theories
Photographs offer a colonialist window to the past – one that must be challenged
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Animals and humans
An artist and ants collaborate on an exhibit of ‘tiny Abstract Expressionist paintings’
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Meaning and the good life
The world turns vivid, strange and philosophical for one plane crash survivor
16 minutes