Seeing-in is no seeing-through

Alberto Voltolini

Abstract


In this paper I intend to focus on the transparency account of picture perception, according to which picture perception is, in many cases at least, a species of perception of transparency that displays a transparency effect even in absence of physical transparency. Basically, I want to show that this account is not correct. For not only it does not rightly capture the phenomenology of picture perception, but also, and more importantly, it does not explain that perception, since picture perception is necessary for a transparency effect. Yet this criticism does not altogether intend to deny that, as to picture perception, the transparency account has some insights that must be kept in any good account of such a perception: namely, the fact that picture perception involves an element of aware illusoriness and the fact that it brings in a sort of transfiguration of the pictorial vehicle per se, the physical basis of a picture, into something that has a pictorial value.

Keywords


picture perception, perception of transparency, transparency effect, twofoldness, aware illusoriness

References


ARNHEIM, Rudolph (1974), Art and Visual Perception, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles.

BRISCOE, Robert (2017), Gombrich and the Duck-Rabbit in M. BEANEY, B. HARRINGTON, and D. SHAW, Aspect Perception after Wittgenstein: Seeing-As and Novelty, Routledge, London, pp. 1-42.

CASATI, Roberto (2009), «Are Shadows Transparent? An Investigation on White, Shadows and Transparency in Pictures», in Res, n. 56, pp. 329-335.

CAVANAGH, Patrick (2005), «The Artist as Neuroscientist», in Nature, n. 434, pp. 301–307.

CUTTING, James E. and MASSIRONI, Manfredo (1998), Pictures and Their Special Status in Perceptual and Cognitive Inquiry, in J. HOCHBERG (ed.), Perception and Cognition at Century’s End, Academic Press, San Diego, pp. 137-168.

GAIGER, Jason (2008), Aesthetics & Painting, Continuum, London.

GOMBRICH, Ernst (1960), Art and Illusion, Phaidon, London.

HOPKINS, Robert (2008), «What Do We See in Film?», in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, n. 66, pp. 149-159.

HOPKINS, Robert (2010), Inflected Pictorial Experience: Its Treatment and Significance, in C. ABELL and K. BANTINAKI (eds.), Philosophical Perspectives on Depiction, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 151-180.

HOPKINS, Robert (2012), «Seeing-in and Seeming to See», in Analysis, n. 72, pp. 650-659.

HYMAN, John (2006), The Objective Eye, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

KULVICKI, John (2009), «Heavenly Sight and the Nature of Seeing-in», in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, n. 67, pp. 387-398.

LEVINSON, Jerrold (1998), «Wollheim on Pictorial Representation», in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, n. 56, pp. 227-233.

METELLI, Fabio (1974), «The Perception of Transparency», in Scientific American, n. 230, pp. 90-98.

NANAY, Bence (2016), Aesthetics as Philosophy of Perception, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

NANAY, Bence (2017), «Threefoldness», in Philosophical Studies, DOI 10.1007/s11098-017-0860-2.

NEWALL, Michael (2011), What is a Picture?, Palgrave, Basingstoke.

NEWALL, Michael (2015), «Is Seeing-In a Transparency Effect?», in British Journal of Aesthetics, n. 55, pp. 131-156.

PYLYSHYN, Zenon (2003), Seeing and Visualizing, The MIT Press, Cambridge MA.

SAYIM, Bilge and CAVANAGH, Patrick (2011), «The Art of Transparency», in i-Perception, n. 2, pp. 679-696.

TAYLOR, Paul (2015), Condition: The Ageing of Art, Paul Holberton Publishing, London.

VOLTOLINI, Alberto (2014), «The Depicted Gaze of the Other», in Rivista di estetica, n. 56, pp. 111-126.

VOLTOLINI, Alberto (2015), A Syncretistic Theory of Depiction, Palgrave, Basingstoke.

WALTON, Kendall (1984), «Transparent Pictures: On the Nature of Photographic Realism», in Critical Inquiry, n. 11, pp. 246-277.

WATANABE Takeo and CAVANAGH Patrick (1996), «Texture Laciness: The Texture Equivalent of Transparency? », in Perception, n. 25, pp. 293–303.

WITTGENSTEIN, Ludwig (1977), Remarks on Color, Blackwell, Oxford.

WOLLHEIM, Richard (19802), Seeing-as, Seeing-in, and Pictorial Representation, in WOLLHEIM (ed.), Art and its Objects, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 205-226.

WOLLHEIM, Richard (1987), Painting as an Art, Princeton University Press, Princeton.

WOLLHEIM, Richard (1998), «On Pictorial Representation», in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, n. 56, pp. 217-226.

WOLLHEIM, Richard (2003a), In Defense of Seeing-in, in H. HECHT, R. SCHWARTZ, and M. ATHERTON (eds.), Looking into Pictures, The MIT Press, Cambridge MA, pp. 3-15.

WOLLHEIM, Richard (2003b), «What Makes Representational Painting Truly Visual?», in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, n. 77, pp. 131-147.


Full Text: DOWNLOAD PDF

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Rivista Italiana di Filosofia del Linguaggio - - - ISSN 2036-6728

 

Licenza Creative Commons
The works published in this journals are released under Creative Commons Licence - Attribution Non Commercial.