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Pictorial Representation
Duck-rabbit
•  Seeing as or aspect perception
•  We see the painted surface as what the
picture depicts
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Seeing as
Seeing as
•  Seeing as is subject to the will; we can swap
from seeing one aspect to seeing the other.
•  The aspects seen exclude each other; we
cannot see both aspects at once.
•  But with realistic paintings, we often cannot
see the picture merely as a paint-daubed
surface.
•  And we can be simultaneously aware both
of the picture's surface and of what it
depicts.
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Seeing in
Seeing in
•  Wollheim characterises depiction as seeing
in; we see the depicted subject in the
painted surface.
•  This involves a twofold experience;
awareness of the depicted subject and of the
painted surface.
•  Even if this view is correct, it does not tell
us how depiction is achieved.
•  And it does not deal with trompe-l'oeil or
photo-realistic pictures, where we tend not
to be simultaneously aware of the painted
surface (even after realising that it is there).
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Make Believe
Make Believe
•  Walton analyses depiction in terms of make
believe. The viewer imagines of her
experience of viewing the designed surface
of the painting that it is a viewing of what
the painting depicts.
•  Like the previous theory, this one does not seem to
match the experience of trompe-l'oeil and highly
realistic pictures; seeing what they represent does
not seem to require any imaginative work.
•  And surely I can know what to imagine only if I
can see what the picture depicts independently of
that imagining. I imagine of my viewing of a
painting that it is a viewing of a barn only because
I see that the painting depicts a barn.
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Symbol systems
Symbol systems
•  Goodman argued that depiction involves a
symbol system that is no less arbitrary and
conventional than that of language.
•  A picture of a mouse is no more natural or
self-explanatory than a description of a
mouse.
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•  There are differences between visual and
linguistic symbol systems, but neither is
more basic than the other and all are
arbitrary.
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Symbol systems
Symbol systems
•  Don't depictions resemble their subjects in
ways words do not resemble what they
denote?
•  Yes, but this is a function of differences in
the two kinds of symbol systems.
•  Among pictorial symbol systems, realism
and resemblance are simply a function of
the system's familiarity.
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•  A picture of the village mayor under
pictorial symbol system A might look like a
picture of the village idiot under pictorial
system B. If it was created using B and we
view it under A, it will look like the mayor,
not the village idiot.
•  But if we become more familiar with B, it
will look more like the village idiot.
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Symbol systems
Symbol systems
•  If some pictorial systems are less natural
than others, so that no amount of familiarity
with them helps us see what is depicted in
them, Goodman is wrong.
•  Some systems of depiction may be
universally valid, in the sense that anyone
can see what is pictured. Of course, there
are cultural differences in the systems of
depiction found around the world--e.g. splitimage kwakiutl--but it is not the case that
just any systematic rule of projection from
subject to painting produces pictorial
depiction.
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Symbol systems
Resemblance
•  We teach young children the meanings of words
using pictures (and we don't have to teach them
first how to read the pictures), which suggests that
the connection between the picture and the thing is
not as arbitrary as that between words and what
they denote or refer to.
•  Some non-human animals can recognise some
modes of picturing, so those modes of depiction
cannot be arbitrary and purely conventional.
•  We might think that the underlying process
is one of noticing a visual resemblance
between the appearance of the picture and
what it depicts.
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Resemblance
Resemblance
•  One painting resembles another more closely than
it resembles what it depicts
•  Remember Walton on categories. Paintings
resemble each other in terms of their standard
properties. But the resemblances that count for
their content are in their variable properties; i.e.
the pattern and texture of the distribution of the
paint on the painting's surface.
•  Resemblance is symmetrical and depiction
is not.
•  We might explain this by reference to the
intentional creation of depictions and their
use in acts of communication.
•  Or the interests of the perceiver might give
direction to the experience.
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Resemblance
Resemblance
•  Some paintings are of generic people and do not
resemble any particular person.
•  But they can resemble people in general.
•  Some paintings depict fictions they cannot
resemble because the fictions don't exist; e.g.
unicorns.
•  But they do resemble other pictures of unicorns
and the appearance of unicorns as this is given in
descriptions of them.
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•  Some paintings do not resemble what they
depict; e.g. Moses or God.
•  There is more to depiction than resemblance
--e.g. conventions, symbols, titles--but this
does not mean resemblance is not central.
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Resemblance
•  The experience of resemblance
accompanies that of recognition, it is not the
basis of the experience of recognition.
•  We experience the dot as resembling the
duck's or rabbit's eye only after we have
seen the duck or rabbit.
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Photo of Dalmation
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Resemblance
Outline shape
•  But perhaps we see the Dalmatian by
experiencing a resemblance in gestalt
(overall shape and pattern) even if we don't
do it bit by bit.
•  Hopkins analyses representation in terms of
experienced resemblance with respect to
outline shape.
•  The outline shape is what you would get by
tracing onto a sheet of glass the boundaries,
planes, colours and textures of some object
seen from a fixed point of view through the
glass.
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Outline shape
•  This theory seems to privilege depictions
that follow the rules of natural perspective,
with a vanishing point on the centre of the
horizon.
•  But many pictures use other systems or
conventions of perspective and they convey
as much or more information than those that
do.
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Hogarth
False
Perspective
Escher
Waterfall
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Duchamp - Nude Descending Staircase
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Outline shape
•  Some ways of dealing with such
counterexamples. Argue that what is
represented is
–  a distorted X; pictorial misrepresentation, as in
the Bush caricature
–  an imprecise or vague X, as in stick men
pictures
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Outline shape
Recognition
•  Argue that something can be experienced as
resembling X in outline shape, and hence as
depicting it, even if it does not resemble X's
outline shape.
•  For example, a stick in water, which we
experience as a representation of a straight
stick partly in water, not as a depiction of a
bent stick.
•  Lopes argues that depiction depends on our
recognitional capacities, not on
resemblance. We experience the
resemblance as a consequence of the
recognition, not vice versa.
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Recognition
•  Our recognitional capacities are an
evolutionary adaption.
•  We can recognise X when viewed from
different points of view.
•  We can recognise and re-identify X at
different times.
•  We can recognise X even if it changes; e.g.
an old friend one has not seen for years.
Fish – Akiyoshi Kitaoka
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Recognition
Recognition
•  It is for psychologists and neuro-scientists to
analyse how the recognition modules function.
•  The point is that depictions trigger the same
recognitional module used in ordinary vision.
•  In ordinary vision, usually it runs in tandem with
belief and knowledge modules.
•  In recognising depictions, the knowledge modules
are involved (i.e. perceptual experience plays a
role) but the belief module does not.
•  This theory does not privilege any one
system of depiction.
•  We are able to recognise depictions
generated under many systems of projection
or depiction.
•  This theory does not privilege "realistic"
depiction over other varieties.
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Recognition
•  Possible objections
–  Do experiences of resemblance play no
contributing role in depiction?
–  Sculptures are depictions, but not of the same
kind as paintings. Can the recognitional theory
of depiction account for the differences
between them?
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Standard conditions for picture
perception
•  From in front
•  Not too close or too far
•  With good lighting
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