Umberto Eco: "Poetics of the open work"

We have interpreted the Umberto Eco essay as him suggesting that any form of art, like music and traditional is subjective and that it is the creators duty to make something that is flexible enough, and reaches a wide enough audience so that the spectators of any art form presented to them can stimulate their senses, letting them read the design how they want to. He makes references to older art from time periods such as the Renaissance, in which he describes the aesthetic of the art form and its use of open, or negative space. His conclusion states that the mechanics of aesthetics as a whole creates a new link between how we contemplate art and how it is utilised.


After reading the essay as a small group together we then put our heads together and tried to put into words what we actually felt about the essay and what was Umberto Eco trying to say. This was our interpretation of the essay put into a short paragraph. We explain how he is trying to say that any form of art is subjective, and that design is very much about how we individually interpret it. We concluded this paragraph by trying to summarise his conclusion, and thought he was trying to say that " the mechanics and aesthetics creates a new link between how we contemplate art and how it is utilised."

After this group exercise I feel that I understand this essay more and I can gather a lot more information about how he is trying to define not just music but art as a whole as being very much open to individual interpretations and open suggestions. It has also made me look at my work differently and has made me more conscience of how other people from different backgrounds may view my work.



Bibliography layout

Eco,U (1989), Theopenwork, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press

  Name, Date, Book title, Where it was published, Publisher