Understanding Art

Werner Herzog posed the question whether we can understand the artist across the abyss of time.

I suppose one might add a chasm of distance to that abyss, but time is more infiniter than distance could ever be.

I do not think the experience of Art leads to understanding of the artist; I think it leads to understanding oneself as a participant in the intelligent life: in sharing the intelligence of a being who fabricates an unusual and complex semaphore of their experience in the midst of creation, while the rest of us stand mute - or, at best, repeat the maxims and adages we learned at our elders' knees.

We do not wish to understand the artist; we desire to comprehend ourselves.
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