Modern Aesthetics and Other Essays

"Works of art are a form of provocation. We do not explain them, but measure ourselves against them. We interpret them according to our aims and desires, give them a meaning whose origin lies in our forms of life and in our ways of thinking. Works of art are unattainable heights. We do not storm them head-on, but walk around them in order to master them better. Each generation views them from a different position and sees them with new eyes, though it is not certain that its viewpoint is the most appropriate. Every aspect of a work has its own time... Indeed, it is only the accumulation of interpretations that gives a work of art its full meaning for the generation that follows."

A. Hauser