The Beholder’s Share*

The idea is this: part of the meaning or significance of a work of art is provided by the viewer. The viewer of the work, by the act of consuming the work, is granted a share of the art’s intent. There is a creative co-op that occurs between the artist and the audience.

In the Westside Writers Workshop, the writing workshop I facilitate, we have begun to use this term when we speak of our written work. We ask ourselves, what is the beholder’s share? How will a reader engage with this piece of writing? What will they take away from it, what will they make their own? How does the writing leave room for the reader to engage?

Creative writing may be started, but it isn’t finished in solitude. A written story is finished in public, out in the wild, where readers take it in, internalize, and share in it. This is when the work is finished, when it has found harbor with a reader. Readers complete books. Readers complete stories. 

*‘The beholder’s share’ is a term from the art world. Coined by Austrian art historian Alois Riegl and popularized by another Austrian-born, British art historian, Ernst Gombrich.