Open AccessWhat Makes Representational Painting Truly Visual?
Author(s) -
Wollheim Richard
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
aristotelian society supplementary volume
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1467-8349
pISSN - 0309-7013
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8349.00106
Subject(s) - meaning (existential) , object (grammar) , experiential learning , epistemology , painting , psychology , aesthetic experience , aesthetics , philosophy , linguistics , art , visual arts , mathematics education
Any experiential view of pictorial meaning will assign to each painting an appropriate experience through which its meaning can be recovered. When the meaning is representational, what is the nature of the appropriate experience? If there is agreement that the experience is to be described as seeing‐in, disagreement breaks out about how seeing‐in is to be understood. This paper challenges two recent interpretations: one in terms of perceived resemblance, the other in terms of imagining seeing. Neither view gives a correct account of how the spectator distributes his attention between the marked surface and the represented object.