Pictorial hows

Vedere-in ed esperienza estetica di immagini

Giulia Martina

pp. 137-154

in: Mimmo Paladino e la filosofia, Rivista di estetica 55, 2014.

Abstract

It has recently been suggested that seeing-in can sometimes be central to the aesthetic appreciation of pictures. The key concept is that of inflected seeing-in, a special case of picture perception connected with the wollheimean notion of twofoldness. In order to further understand inflection, I focus on Nanays account. He holds that conscious attention is essential to inflected seeing-in. I agree, but I suggest our conceptualization of the properties of the pictorial vehicle is necessary to account for the complexity of this experience. Developing a suggestion from Wollheim, I then characterize inflected pictorial experience in terms of different pictorial hows and our grasping of them. This makes it possible to account for the intuitive link between properties of experiences and properties of the pictures that trigger them, as well as for the appealing idea that our conscious apprehension of the way a picture depicts its subject - what I may call the pictorial hows - plays a significant role in our aesthetic experience of pictures. I finally look at these results in the more general perspective of a representationalist theory of aesthetic experience.