Reading (Artist’s) Letters as Thick description

In my paper I advocate that artists’ letters are read as if they were, what anthropologist Clifford Geertz has called, “thick description.” When practicing “thick description,” anthropologists not merely describe certain behaviors of their subjects, but also the contexts of these behaviors and even the subjects’ own explanations, so that the behaviors can be more fully understood.

By reading artists’ letters as thick description, I mean that we pay equal attention to apparently important passages, in which the artist may expound on his theories or art of explain the meaning of one of his paintings and to seemingly trivial ones, in which he or she talks about health issues or invites a friend for dinner as all may have a direct or residual impact on the artist’s work and the way we interpret it.

Using the letters of Courbet as an example, I intend to present some insights into Courbet’s work that come from the kind of close reading of the artist’s letters that I advocate. I will also raise the question whether, in the editorial process, such insights should be entered into the scholarly apparatus, specifically, the explanatory notes, accompanying the letters.