The Duke doesn t represent the painting. Resemblance not a necessary or a sufficient condition for representation. Two peas in a pod resemble one another but one does not represent the other. Conventionalist theories of pictorial representation . We read pictures.
Pictures are in a language.
Pictures are language. We don t see what the picture represents unless we know the language. Denotation is the core of representation and is independent of resemblance. Our best perceptualist theorist is Richard Wollheim. The new theory holds that we see y in x.