In Roland Barthes text “The Death of the Author’ he critically analyses
the relationship between the author and the reader of a text, and the readers interpretation
of it with a disconnection from the author. Barthes explains that the author
and his life, views and background have a huge impact on the way the text is perceived,
for example he says ‘Baudelaire’s work is the failure of Baudelaire the man,
Van Gogh’s his madness, Tchaikovsky’s his vice’ (143) and that the work would
be read in a completely different way if the author was removed from the text. He
believes that the reader should be able to make up their own ideas and not be
swayed by ‘the author, his person, his life, his tastes, his passion’ (143).
Within illustration, the hand of the maker in my opinion is often shown,
and I feel this is important within the practise; illustrators should be able
to portray their views, and put across a message in their own voice, at the end
of the day it is their own work and removing them from it almost discredits
them. The creator should be appreciated for their talent and hard work.
Barthes does argue that society gives too much importance to the author,
saying it has ‘discovered the prestige of the individual’ (143) as oppose to
the work itself. This means that once an artist is deemed successful, all of
their work will be seen as such and it will almost be prematurely liked, almost
disregarding what it actually looks like. Jean Jullien could be an example of
this, although I love the aesthetics of his work, because of his popularity
everything he produces now seems to be universally liked mainly because his
name is attached. By detaching the author, it can drastically change how the
work is viewed, swapping around the power and now giving it to the reader instead,
leaving them to ignore the background and the factual elements.
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