Abstract
What is it to see something in a picture? Most accounts of pictorial experience—or, to use Richard Wollheim's term, ‘seeing-in’—seek, in various ways, to explain it in terms of how pictures somehow display the looks of things. However, some ‘things’ that we apparently see in pictures do not display any ‘look’. In particular, most pictures depict empty space, but empty space does not seem to display any ‘look’—at least not in the way material objects do. How do we see it in pictures, if we do? This chapter offers an account of pictorial perception of empty space by elaborating on Wollheim's claim that ‘seeing-in’ is permeable to thought. It ends by pointing to the aesthetic relevance of seeing—or not seeing—empty space in pictures.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Evaluative perception |
| Editors | Anna BERGQVIST, Robert COWAN |
| Place of Publication | United Kingdom |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press |
| Chapter | 6 |
| Pages | 129-142 |
| Number of pages | 14 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 9780198786054 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9780198786054 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 31 May 2018 |
Keywords
- Aesthetic experience
- Cognitive permeation
- Empty space
- Pictorial experience
- Seeing-in
Fingerprint Dive into the research topics of 'Seeing Depicted Space (or Not)'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.
Cite this
PETTERSSON, C. M. (2018). Seeing Depicted Space (or Not). In A. BERGQVIST, & R. COWAN (Eds.), Evaluative perception (pp. 129-142). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198786054.003.0007