Pictorial Representation, or Depiction 1. Resemblance (in occlusion or outline shape) Objective Resemblance (x resembles y; examplar: shadows) Subjective Resemblance (x is experienced by z as resembling y) Not sufficient. Add: Intended by the artist. Or: caused by the artist. Problems: Pictures of the non-existent, the fictional Resemblance is a matter of degree; not so the picturing relation

Pictorial Representation, or Depiction Defenders of the Resemblance view: John Hyman (objective); Robert Hopkins, Malcolm Budd (subjective)

Pictorial Representation, or Depiction 2. Semiotic View Words and their referents What kinds of words? Names? No; descriptions. a man slaying a dragon, etc. Problems: Language is discrete; pictures are dense. A picture must perceived, and cannot be translated. Unable to account for transfer. No one has actually given a grammar, or syntax, for pictures.

Semiotic or Semantic view: Nelson Goodman

3. Picturing as make-believe. One imagines one s looking a picture as looking face-to-face at the subject of the picture. Problems: The experience of the picture plays only a minor role Little in the way of explanation The spectator, and not the picture, is in charge of the experience. Wrong way round. Held by Kendall Walton

4. The illusion view (Ernst Gombrich) One is given the illusion of seeing the represented object face-to-face. Typically, some, but not all the triggers for object-recognition are activated. Problems: Struggles with, for example, cubism Denies what Wollheim calls two-foldedness

Compare: (1) I see a duck. (2) I see a rabbit. (3) I see black lines. (1) and (2) cannot both be true simultaneously. (1) and (3) can be.

According to Richard Wollheim, Gombrich s mistake is his implicit denial of Two-Foldedness. Configurational Fold vs Recognitional Fold. (3) goes with the C-fold. (1) or (2) goes with the R-fold. I call the object seen under the configurational fold (the clouds, the plaster, the lines-on-the-page) the primary object; I call the the object seen under the recognitional fold (the rabbit, the duck, the battle-scene), the secondary object.

5. Wollheim s Theory

Wollheim s Theory Seeing-as. Not a graded relation like resemblance Not in any sense transitive or symmetrical Seeing-as vs. Seeing-in. Ur-drawing.

Leonardo s pupils. Wollheim s Theory

The Theory: x depicts y iff: (a) y can be seen in x; and (b) the artist intended that y can be seen in x. (b) is a criterion of correctness

Wollheim s Theory A subjective theory (an intersubjective theory) There is a fact of the matter about what a picture represents. To understand a picture s representational content, there is a particular kind of perceptual state one must have. Not so of the Semiotic Theory of depiction.

Wollheim s Theory Advantages of Seeing-in over Seeing-as. Necessarily, if one sees x as y, y is a particular. But one can see particulars and states of affairs in pictures. In the famous picture by Hokusai, I see that the wave is about to break upon the boat.

Wollheim s Theory The localisation requirement: Holds universally for seeing-as, not always for seeing-in. What part of the cloud do you see as the elephant s trunk? The aftermath of a storm

Wollheim s Theory The phenomenon of prompting: In order to see the representational content of a picture, one may require a non-trivial amount knowledge: of stories, of psychology, history, etc. Nevertheless, the content in visual: it is there to be seen.

Titian: Flaying of Marsyas c1570

The Trompe-l œil

No two-foldedness, therefore not a pictorial representation? perceptual state that is non-committal as regards judgement: non-judgemental seeing-as. perceptual state plus judgement: judgemental seeing-as. negative judgemental aspect-perception: there is an x such that I see x as Φ, but I judge x not to be Φ. positive judgemental aspect-perception: there is an x such that I see x as Φ, and I judge x to be Φ.

the negative judgemental seeing-as occurs because one is viewing a picture, that one is engaged in pictorial seeing Thus: A marked surface depicts an item only if (1) competent spectators have an experience of negative judgemental seeing-as of the item when viewing the surface; (2) the maker of the marked surface intended that they should do so; (3) competent spectators are (at least implicitly) aware that they have an experience of negative judgemental seeing-as of the item because they are viewing the marked surface.