![]() ![]() In this case the question of the resemblance if a picture to an object does not even arise, since there is nothing for it to resemble. Even more crucial is the objection that a picture can be made to specify an object that does not exist and has never existed. Similarly a cartoon drawing of a Volkswagen may convey more information about its peculiarities than a photograph could. Less obviously and more deeply, a caricature of a person may not even resemble the person in the way that a photograph does and yet it may specify the person, that is, it may show us his distinctive features. In the first place, and most obviously, a rectangle of paper does not resemble a wife and a shadow does not resemble an automobile. The shadow of an automobile specifies it in a way that its license-plate does not.īut the assumption, despite its plausibility, is surely mistaken. A photograph of one’s wife, carried around in a wallet, is similar to her in a way that her name is not. He can reply that the name of an object does not resemble the object, or not in the way its picture does. Ī believer in this assumption may be at a loss if required to say what he means by resemblance, similarity, or likeness. The image of a man, his portrait, is said to be like him, and one who portrays strives for a likeness. The best picture is a copy of the object, a replica or simulacrum. It must have the same form as the object and it should also have the same color if it is to be really faithful. A bad picture is one that is not sufficiently similar to what it is a picture of. ![]() A good picture is similar to what it is a picture of. This assumption is superficially plausible and, in one form or another, has been widely believed from the time of the ancient Greek thinkers. A faithful picture of an object is one that resembles it. This theory is based in optics but not on the orthodox theory of image optics.ġ. Then I will suggest an alternative, a general theory of optical information available in pictures. ![]() But I believe that all of them are mistaken, and I reject all of them.Ĭonsidering them one by one, I will try to show how they are incorrect. And finally there is the assumption that the idea of an object, depending on a special sort of projection of the retinal image to the brain, has the same relation to the object that a picture does. This latter is closely related to the assumption that the retinal image is a picture of the object, in accordance with the still current and accepted theory of image optics that stems from Kepler. There is also a very old notion that the resemblance of a picture to its object is explained by a point-to-point projective correspondence between them. What do we mean by pictorial representation? Just what does a pictorial representation do? There is a very old assumption that a faithful picture of an object is one that resembles the object, or is similar to it. Copies may be circulated if this statement is included on each copy. References to these essays must cite them explicitly as unpublished manuscripts. Gibson, Cornell University The World Wide Web distribution of James Gibson’s “Purple Perils” is for scholarly use with the understanding that Gibson did not intend them for publication. The project questions the art historical narrative connected with the term "Andachtsbild", in which the cult image of the Middle Ages is replaced by the image as a work of art in the Renaissance, by arguing that the potential for functional plurality is not only a main feature of this pictorial form, but is also linked to the multifunctional, semi-public domestic context in which the paintings were perceived.October 1972 On the Nature of Pictorial Representation Nevertheless, independent panel paintings from the late Quattro- and early Cinquecento that depict saints as half-figures are still often labled as 'private devotional images', although formal characteristics-the similarity to portrait paintings, the lascivious depictions of (almost) naked bodies, the economical use of symbolic attributes and the semantic ambiguity resulting therefrom-suggest an openness to multiple functions and various modes of reception. Jacob Burckhardt's categorization of small format panel paintings of the Virgin, Christ and the saints as "Hausandachtsbilder" (domestic devotional images) has been the subject to a lively debate over the course of the last decades and inter alia problematized as a period term that determines the objects perception in terms of one singular function. ![]()
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