Is art subjective? Is it up to the viewer to interpret art? Or is the artist really trying to say something?

The answer?......

I think it depends on the pre-supposed purpose of the artist. Is the artist concerned with only form? Or is the artist concerned with idea also? This is important, since it will effect the perception of certain kinds of art. Movies are of course the current area of study for me, so it is what I am most focusing on. Movies are stories told through pictures and sound, making 99% of movies loaded with idea. In other words, it is not just form like abstract painting, but has idea sewn into its very fabric.

An idea is a point of view, a piece to the puzzle of someone’s ideology, so if an idea is “expressed”, it is expressed with intent. It is not subjective. Yes some people will benefit or understand something apart from what the creator intended, but that is not the point of the creation or why it was created. If it was all relative, than I have to ask-What was the point! Why would you watch anything and attempt to give any form of a statement if it was “all relative/subjective”? I see this often in school and on this site- people referring to a movie as subjective, as if the writer/creator was pulling stuff out of his A$$. This all goes back to a debate that has raged for millennium, relativity vs empirical truth. In reference to art, I think it harms many types of art, including movies. When people see movies/books/music as a subjective art form, they open themselves to “assumed language”, taking in ideas that are not good, ideas that mix and pollute everything, never knowing why they believe something, just thinking that “this is who they are”. …..