allow • Meanings of artworks are not limited to what the artist intended them to mean • Interpretations are not so much right, but are more or less reasonable, convincing, informative, and enlightening • Interpretations imply a worldview • Good interpretations tell more about the artwork than they tell about the interpreter • The objects of interpretation are artworks, not artists • All art is in part about the world in which it emerged • All art is in part about other art • Good interpretations have coherence, correspondence, and inclusiveness • Interpreting art is an endeavour that is both individual and communal • Some interpretations are better than others • The admissibility of an interpretation is ultimately determined by a community of interpreters and the community is self-correcting • Good interpretations invite us to see for ourselves and continue on our own According to Arthur Danto, a contemporary philosopher and art critic, names, as an essential characteristic of artworks, “aboutness”. That artworks are necessarily about something is the cornerstone of Danto’s philosophy of art. Since they are about something they must be interpreted. Barrett's book, Reflecting, Wondering and Responding, summarises Danto’s theory as containing five major propositions, namely, that a work of art is (1) about something, (2) projects a point of view, (3) projects this point of view by rhetorical means, and (4) requires interpretation and that (5) the work and interpretation require an art-historical context. Feelings are guides to interpretation Emotions play a central role in interpreting works of art and in understanding the world. About emotions in interpreting art Goodman states; “The work of art is apprehended through the feelings as well as through the senses. Emotional numbness disables here as definitely if not as completely as blindness and deafness… emotion in aesthetic experience is a means of discerning what properties a work has and experiences.” Israel Scheffler, a philosopher who writes about education and art is a proponent of Goodman’s theory of art, offers elaboration on how the emotions are intimately tied to our perception of the world. Emotions help us to construct a vision of the world and to define the critical features of that world: Emotions help us to see the environment in a certain light. Emotions tell us whether it is “beneficial or harmful, promising or threatening, fulfilling or thwarting.” The role of the emotions in reading the world applies to interpreting