Understanding pictures
By: Dominic Lopes
Publisher: Clarendon; Oxford University Press
Published: 2004
Place of publication: Oxford; New York
Language: eng
Format: [electronic resource] /
ISBN-13: 9781423770985; 9781280755187
Subjects: Pictures; Aesthetics; ART; General
Description: There are many ways to picture the world - Australian 'x-ray' pictures, cubist collages, Amerindian split-style figures, and pictures in two-point perspective each draw attention to different features of what they represent. The premise of Understanding Pictures is that this diversity is the central fact with which a theory of figurative pictures must reckon. Lopes argues that identifying pictures' subjects is akin to recognizing objects whose appearances have changed over time. He develops a schema for categorizing the different ways pictures represent-the different kinds of meaning they have-and he contends that depiction's epistemic value lies in its representational diversity. He also offers a novel account of the phenomenology of pictorial experience, comparing pictures to visual prostheses like mirrors and binoculars. The book concludes with a discussion of works of art which have made pictorial meaning their theme, demonstrating the importance of the issues this book raises for understanding the aesthetics of pictures.
Notes: Originally published: 1996.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.
Table of contents: title: Cover; title: CONTENTS; title: LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS; title: Introduction; title: PART ONE58; PICTURES AS PERCEPTUAL; title: 1 Representation and Resemblance; title: 2 Depiction and Vision; title: PART TWO58; PICTURES AS SYMBOLS; title: 3 Goodman8217;s Symbol Theory; title: 4 Symbols and Substitutes; title: 5 Pictorial Reference; title: PART THREE58; ASPECT RECOGNITION; title: 6 Pictorial Content; title: 7 Pictorial Recognition; title: 8 Pictorial Meaning; title: 9 Pictorial Experience; title: PART FOUR58; APPLICATIONS; title: 10 Fictive Pictures; title: 11 Picturing Pictures; title: BibliographY; title: PICTURE CREDITS; title: INDEX; title: A; title: B; title: C; title: D; title: E; title: F; title: G; title: H; title: I; title: J; title: K; title: L; title: M; title: N; title: O; title: P; title: R; title: S; title: T; title: U; title: V; title: W; title: X; title: Last Page.