Abstract :
When building the bridge of experiential art understanding, the focus is set on the
key stone of self in the centre of the arch. Art interpretation as a means of
understanding and constructing self is based on the view of self as an unilinear
collage of the accumulated life experiences each of us possesses. It is a whole
consisting of different roles and relations, cultural identity being a crucial part of it.
Self-identity is the experience of distinctness, agency, and continuity that is formed
through one’s personal life history. In the model of experiential art interpretation,
the process of art interpretation is understood as a series of events where the
viewer’s past and present experiences are the basis for constructing new knowledge.
The dialectics between personal and social knowledge happens through the
different, coequal forms of grasping and transformation. Experiential art
interpretation combines strategies from the disciplines of art history, aesthetics, and
criticism, and connects them to the experientially-based processes of reflective
observation, conceptualization, and production. A central concept in experiential art
exploration is transfer, which means the ability to apply knowledge and skills
learned in one context to other situations. Transfer leads to increased selfconsciousness
and metacognitive skills. For transfer to happen, learners have to be
able to apply processes of artistic inquiry both in understanding other artworks and
in making their own artworks. The second level of transfer has to do with the ability
to apply the new ideas and attitudes adopted in the interpretation process in reallife
situations.
