I had an art philosophy class once where the teacher put down a bronze statue of very stylised thin and elongated people. There were three or four of them in different sizes, all hugging their arms around their own body.

He asked us what we saw. Some saw a depiction of depression, people stretched thin and isolated in themselves despite being group. Others saw victims of abuse, raw and vulnerable, having never left their moment of pain. Yet others saw a family, huddled together as the different sized figures made up a group.

There were all kinds of explanations but most of them revolving around the sense of physical vulnerability and mental vulnerability the thin, stretched figures evoked.

Eventually the teacher revealed that the statue commemorated the victims of a concentration camp. Just a group of people pushed beyond all human boundaries, utterly vulnerable but surviving.

And none of us could have known that because there's a difference between recognising symbolism and recognising the specific thing something is symbolic of. Nobody thought that group of people had a positive vibe. But just recognising that they are looking vulnerable in no way leads to realising that they represent Jewish concentration camp victims.

Without context, the sculpture would have worked for any of our explanations. Just like a boy on a hill clearly looks isolated but nobody can tell if he's ignored, seeking peace or something completely different like trying to get closer to the heavens.