If you remove the art from the context, would it still mean the same to you? There are tons of unknown artists whose portraits are in circulation and their buyers would have no idea what they went through when painting them. At that point the artwork would have to stand on its own and resonate with the buyer for it to be meaningful for them.
This is why I usually enjoy the book more if I know some context about a writer, even if my conclusions about how it influenced a book are entirely wrong. I think it’s better to know context for visual art, too, but indeed context is not a part of the artwork itself (although I believe not everyone thinks this way, and I don’t know if I agree with them or not in the end)
If you remove the art from the context, would it still mean the same to you? There are tons of unknown artists whose portraits are in circulation and their buyers would have no idea what they went through when painting them. At that point the artwork would have to stand on its own and resonate with the buyer for it to be meaningful for them.
This is why I usually enjoy the book more if I know some context about a writer, even if my conclusions about how it influenced a book are entirely wrong. I think it’s better to know context for visual art, too, but indeed context is not a part of the artwork itself (although I believe not everyone thinks this way, and I don’t know if I agree with them or not in the end)