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EXPLAINING DEPICTION
(1) How do pictures represent? Well, no doubt they do so in many ways. If a painting shows a seated woman, if she symbolises Despair, and if the work expresses melancholy, we should not assume that the representational relations here are all the same. Nonetheless, perhaps one form of representation is specially pictorial. Perhaps, in other words, there is a form of representation which is distinctively exhibited by pictures and which it is distinctive of pictures to exhibit. It seems more likely that our painting exhibits this distinctive form in representing a seated woman than in representing Despair. For consider a representation which is not a picture - a written description. This might describe a seated woman who symbolised Despair. It is tempting to say that the picture and the description represent a seated woman in different ways, but Despair in the same way - by representing something which itself symbolises Despair. This is not just a point concerning the means by which representation is achieved; it renders plausible the claim that the form of representation in the two cases is also the same. Let's make the working assumption that there is a specially pictorial form of representation, and let's call it "depiction".^1 What is depiction? Philosophers have provided many different answers to this question. These appeal, inter alia, to formal features of the representational system, to natural relations between depiction and depicted, to our experience of pictures, and to the resources we must deploy to understand them.^2 This variety is welcome, but it has not led to healthy debate. Instead discussion has all too often reduced to trading counter-examples. The protagonists have merely exchanged conflicting intuitions as to whether a particular case depicts or not. This may lead us to wonder if there is interesting disagreement here. Perhaps the different views articulate several distinct notions, rather than offer rival accounts of a single idea. The purpose of this paper is to remedy this situation. Order can be brought to the chaos if we remember that the point of a philosophical theory is to offer explanations. This suggests a certain approach to the topic. We must identify some prominent features of depiction and try to explain why it has them. We provide that explanation by offering an analysis of depiction from which those features follow. The key test of any analysis is whether it succeeds in this role. This approach will not
guarantee an end to controversy, since some may disagree with our chosen explananda. But at least the terms of debate will have changed, and for the better. The proposed explananda must be plausible independently of the account which explains them; nonetheless, once we have that account it will support the explananda as well as being supported by them. The equilibrium thus attained is a more substantial achievement than merely insisting on some intuition about a particular case. Those who wish to offer a serious alternative to our view will have to offer a better explanation for our chosen features, or provide a different, and equally plausible, set of features and an explanation for them. In the next section I describe some features of depiction sufficiently striking to demand explanation. Section 3 discusses the ability of some prominent current views to meet that demand. Section 4 outlines an alternative account of depiction, and in 5 this is used to provide the needed explanations. (2) Depiction can, but need not, be of some particular. A portrait depicts a particular person, but many examples of genre painting depict someone of a certain type without there being any particular person of that type whom the painting depicts.^3 If no particular is depicted, depiction is simply of a thing with certain properties. Moreover, depiction of a particular is always depiction of it as enjoying some properties. For example, a portrait cannot depict Winston Churchill without ascribing some features to him. Thus the distinction is really between depicting a set of properties as instantiated by a particular and depicting them as co-instantiated, but not by any particular thing.^4 Whether or not they depict particulars, pictures always have a fairly rich content. The thought here is important but elusive. It is perhaps part of what people mean when they say that pictures paint a thousand words. Can we tease something more precise from this talk of richness? We have already articulated part of the idea here with perfect precision, viz. that it is not possible to depict a particular without ascribing to it some properties. Why this should be is certainly something to explain. However, there is more, since even the depiction of properties demands a content that is not too thin. For example, a picture cannot depict something as simply triangular, or as simply a table. If it depicts either, it depicts something of more determinate nature - perhaps an isosceles triangle, perhaps a three-legged, square-topped table. Of course, the properties depicted need not be fully
must attempt to explain, and one which has frequently been noted.^8 No less important is the insight of the Renaissance theorist Alberti that "the painter is concerned solely with representing what can be seen" (1966 p.43). A gloss makes this a little clearer: (x3) Whatever can be depicted can be seen. This also invites clarification. There is a distinction, applying to the depiction of particulars, between those properties the depicted particular actually enjoys and those it is depicted as enjoying. Should we take (x3) as claiming that any particular depicted must actually be visible, or that it must be depicted as visible? I suggest we should accept both readings. We can do so by allowing "whatever" to cover any particular or property. Then any particular depicted must in fact be visible; so the first reading is secured. Further, any property a picture ascribes must be one the possession of which by an item is in general visually detectable, thus guaranteeing the second reading.^9 The result is a strong claim - why should we make it? It is hard to deny that the vast majority of pictures depict items which are themselves visible, and depict them as having a visual appearance. True, (x3) goes further, precluding the depiction of any non-visible feature. This may seem to clash with the concern, common in portraiture, with representing character traits. However, what a portrait depicts is precisely aspects of character which are visibly manifested - in the curl of the lips, the furrowing of the brows, and so on. Conversely, what it cannot depict is a completely concealed aspect of character. Thus if (x3) goes too far, it does so by ignoring some rather unusual pictorial possibilities, rather than by misunderstanding the depictive mainstream. There are perhaps two important sources of anxiety here. First, can I not depict something as in visible? Suppose I depict a wispy, near transparent lion, moving amongst villagers who look straight through it. Does this provide a counter example to (x3)? Certainly I have depicted the villagers failing to see the lion, and, given that they are looking in the right direction, depicted it as invisible to them. But if I am to depict the lion at all, I must give the viewer of the picture some indication of its presence - hence the wispy, near transparent shape in the
depicted scene. But then I have depicted something wispy and near transparent - and hence something (just) visible. To whom is this thing visible? Not to anyone depicted in the scene, for sure, but to anyone viewing the scene from the point from which it is represented. If you were looking at the scene (not the picture of it), you would see the wispy lion, and the villagers failing to see it. Thus the lion seems to be depicted both as visible and as invisible. There is no problem reconciling these two claims, for one thing because there is no one person to whom the represented lion is both visible and invisible, for another because there is anyway no difficulty with depicting inconsistent states of affairs (for examples, see some of MC Escher's drawings, or Hogarth's False Perspective ). But if the lion is depicted as both visible and invisible, it is certainly depicted as visible, and hence (x3) stands. The picture ascribes to the lion properties (wispiness and near transparency) which can, in general, be seen, and the fact that it also ascribes to it the property of being invisible to certain depicted people does not change matters. We might try to tighten up the example, for instance by representing the presence of the lion by its footprints alone. But if one were looking (face-to-face) at the scene now, one would be able to see that a lion was present, but not to see the lion itself. Similarly, it seems right to say that the picture now depicts a scene in which a lion is present, but does not depict the lion. True, none of these claims is so obviously correct that there is no possibility of denying it. However, the questions which arise here, the pressures shaping the answers to them, and the resources available to accommodate those pressures, are strikingly similar for seeing and depicting. Thus far from weakening the hold (x3) has on us, this refined example bolsters it. Second, there is class of representations which seem to fly full in the face of both the claims (x3) captures. Consider, for instance, an illustration showing the layout of a magnetic field. It is not obviously wrong to describe this as depicting the field; yet the field has no visual appearance, and the illustration does not ascribe one to it. It is hard to know what to say here. Plainly the illustration represents the field, but does it depict it? There is some inclination to say so, but that is hardly enough to dictate a reasoned philosophical
in fact enjoyed by Big Ben. The result might represent the Tower in some way, and it would certainly depict something - a building of a certain shape, colour and the like. However, the picture would not depict the Tower.^10 I will consider the most serious objection to this only after introducing the last two explananda, since the objection applies to them as well. These last two concern the epistemic resources deployed in understanding depiction. Several writers have noted the fact of "transfer", that is that once one knows how to understand some pictures, the only thing one needs to understand others is knowledge of the appearance of the things they depict. Thus, if I can see that a photograph depicts you, and I know what your next door neighbour looks like, I can tell that a photograph depicts her. Transfer concerns the resources sufficient for understanding, but there is an equally plausible claim about those necessary for it. For if I do not know what your neighbour looks like, I cannot see the photo as depicting her. This is not to say that I cannot understand it at all - I may be able to tell that it depicts a woman, with blond hair, a nose of a certain shape, and so forth. But insofar as I can tell that it depicts this or that, I must know what such a thing looks like. And if I learn that the picture depicts that particular woman (perhaps it is on a Wanted poster), I ipso facto acquire knowledge of what she looks like.^11 The co-variance of knowledge of appearance with ability to understand depiction can be captured in the following two claims: (x5) General competence with depiction and knowledge of the appearance of O (be it a particular a or merely some F-thing) suffice for the ability to understand depiction of O. (x6) General competence with depiction and knowledge of the appearance of O are necessary for the ability to understand depiction of O. We can now consider the most prominent objection to the claim about misrepresentation, (x4). Consider the representation of historically distant personages, such as the Saints. Often such pictures
contain clues as to which Saint they represent, but this is not always so. A typical Leonardo drawing of St Anne, for example, may merely show a woman from the front. This picture ascribes various properties to Anne, but there is no reason to believe that she really enjoyed any of these; quite possibly she looked completely different. So if this picture depicts St Anne, (x4) must be wrong. It is a notable feature of this example that we are, as Leonardo was, ignorant of Anne's appearance. Since this is so, it is clear that the example threatens (x5) and (x6) as well. Contra (x6), understanding the picture as representing Anne cannot require knowledge of her appearance, on pain of denying that Leonardo himself can tell what his work depicts. Contra (x5), knowledge of her appearance would not, along with the ability to understand other pictures, suffice for understanding the picture. One must also be able to read the picture's title, or have some other access to the identity of the person portrayed. Should we accept that the drawing depicts St Anne, and abandon the three explananda? The alternative is to preserve the explananda by claiming that the picture depicts a woman with certain properties, and represents Anne in some non-pictorial manner. My preference is for this second course, for the following reasons. First, although there is certainly some appeal in the idea that Anne is depicted, this can hardly constitute a knock down argument against the claims above. For the intuition the objection relies upon is no firmer than others we have had reason to doubt. Against it must be set the attractions of the three explananda. Each of these general claims has a certain plausibility, I think, and since the view that Anne is depicted contradicts all three, its appeal must outweigh that of the trio as a whole. Second, there is something unstable in the position we would occupy if we accepted the intuition. To see this, first consider (x5) and (x6) alone. The St Anne case in no way casts doubt on the idea that some depiction is understood using just the resources they mention. Everything I said about the photograph of your next door neighbour stands; it is merely the generalisation of these claims to all depiction which the Leonardo is intended to block. So if we accept the counter example we are left claiming that understanding some depiction requires nothing more than general competence and
visual appearances, understanding them is not always dependent on knowing what those appearances are, and always requires something more. In short, the contrasts here are unrelenting. They should provoke us into a stronger awareness of the unity the explananda exhibit.^12 Thus there is good reason to see the explananda as describing a distinctive sort of content. Why, however, should we identify that content with depiction? Why not instead take depiction to fragment into two sorts of content, that which the explananda cover, and that, such as the representation of St Anne, which they do not? If the thought here is that there are two completely distinct sorts of content, both named "depiction", that thought is harmless. For we would then have to offer separate accounts of those distinct forms of representation, and the rest of this paper could be seen as providing one of those two accounts. So the idea must rather be that the content covered by the explananda and that to which they do not apply are interestingly related, so that a satisfactory account of either should bring out what it has in common with the other. What reason, however, is there to accept this? We have seen that the explananda describe a coherent and distinctive form of representation. If anyone wishes to say that that form is closely related to some other, to which the explananda do not apply, the onus is now on her to make good that claim. Since it is hard to see how that could be done simply by making claims about what individual pictures do or do not depict, this brings us back to the challenge, made at the start of the paper, for those who disagree with my explananda and explanation to provide something better themselves. There is a less defensive point to make too. The content which the explananda do not cover would seem to be very limited. It is merely one aspect of what pictures such as the St Anne drawing represent, viz. the particular in question. Furthermore, these examples are rather special, since they seem to trade off the fact that the represented particular is one of whose appearance we are ignorant. Thus the range of putative depiction which the explananda do not cover is very small indeed. This surely makes it tempting simply to abandon the idea that such contents are depicted. We have succeeded in extracting, from our complex and extensive linguistic practices involving the term "depiction", a core usage which the explananda both delineate and reveal to have a powerful
coherence. For the few aspects of our usage which are not so accommodated, it does not seem arbitrary to consider them misapplications, albeit understandable ones,^13 of a term which reflects, in its other uses, a distinct and interesting concept. Thus the six explananda combine so that their plausibility as a group outstrips that they enjoy as individuals. And this is as well, for views unable to explain why depiction has these features will be tempted to deny that it does have them. I have suggested that one penalty that denial would incur would be the loss of a coherent set of claims, a set embodying a distinctive view of pictorial representation, and inviting us to show that the explananda's striking unity has a deep source. (3) It will be useful to demonstrate that the explananda do not identify trivial features of depiction, that providing explanations for them is not a task every theory can perform. To this end, I shall briefly consider two accounts which seem to me to embody the most influential and interesting approaches to depiction. The six explananda provide an incisive and informative way to assess them. (a) Goodman One influential approach attempts to understand depiction as essentially conventional, just as linguistic representation and many other forms are. Its most successful exponent is Nelson Goodman. Goodman tackles depiction in the context of a general account of the variety of symbol systems. What is special about symbol systems which are pictorial? Goodman identifies three features which are important, features he terms syntactic and semantic density, and relative repleteness. We need not worry about the details of this here. Roughly stated, the upshot is that for Goodman pictorial systems are ones in which, for a wide range of properties of the mark on the surface, the tiniest differences in that property matter to what is represented. He does not claim that this provides a condition sufficient for a system's being pictorial, but it is necessary, and it serves to distinguish pictorial systems from linguistic ones.^14 Although Goodman does not claim to have defined depiction, it is still reasonable to ask whether he has said enough about it to explain its central features. The following example suggests otherwise. 15
recognitional, aspect is analogous to seeing the picture's object face-to-face. But it is a mistake to ask in what way either fold is analogous to the corresponding experience: "We get lost once we start comparing the phenomenology of our perception of the boy when we see him in the wall, or the phenomenology of our perception of the wall when we see the boy in it, with that of our perception of boy or wall seen face-to- face....The particular complexity that one kind of experience has and the other lacks makes their phenomenology incommensurate" (1987 pp.46-7). Wollheim's account does have some chance of explaining the six features. By connecting our experience of a picture to face-to-face visual experience of the picture's object, it manages to introduce the links to, and involvement of, visual appearances on which so many of the explananda turn. This should enable him to make a start with every one of the six. Consider, for example, (x2) - the claim that all depiction is perspectival. If a picture depicts something it must be possible to see that thing in the picture, and to do that is to have an experience analogous, in one fold, to seeing that thing face-to-face. But all seeing face-to-face is from a point of view. This point of view features in the fold of seeing-in analogous to face-to-face seeing, thereby entering into what is seen in the picture, and thus into what it depicts. However all this concedes is that Wollheim can begin to explain (x2). Until we know more about the crucial analogy between seeing-in in its recognitional aspect and face-to-face seeing, it is wholly unclear how to complete the explanation. For why should the perspectival nature of ordinary vision be preserved in the recognitional fold of pictorial experience? Why isn't it "filtered out" as, for instance, is any impression of stereopsis? While the formula for relating ordinary seeing to seeing-in remains the blank "in some way analogous", it is impossible to answer these questions. In the face of this difficulty what Wollheim should do is to develop his characterisation of seeing-in further. He should attempt to elucidate the crucial analogy, taking the need to explain (x1) to (x6) as constraining whatever account he finally settles upon. What he actually does is to resign, falling back on the conviction that nothing more illuminating about seeing-in can be said. We can now see that this
course is wholly unacceptable. (4) How are we to do better with the six explananda? What we need is an account of depiction that builds upon the limited successes above. Approaching depiction through our experience of it enabled Wollheim to make some progress, and we should continue to work within the framework he established. What we want is an account of that experience which enables more explanatory work to be done. One way to obtain such an account is to appeal to the old idea that pictures resemble or look like what they depict. This at least promises to make central the appearance of what is depicted, something central to the explananda, as our discussion of their unity revealed.^19 The notion of resemblance can yield a characterisation of our experience of depiction if we suppose that a depiction of something is seen as resembling it. The central problem this immediately poses is to say in what respect we see pictures as resembling what they depict. It is not true, for instance, that we see a depiction of something as resembling it in the complex overall way in which identical twins are alike. If picture and object look alike they must do so is some more particular respect. Yet for any respect on which we fasten difference is more apparent than likeness. We do not see all pictures as sharing the colours of what they depict, nor their textures, and certainly not their shapes. How, then, do picture and object look alike? To find the answer, let us consider a particular case. Suppose I am looking at one of the Pyramids through a misty window, and that on the glass I trace the monument's contours with my finger. The result is a picture, of sorts. How does it resemble the pyramid? Since the tracing is colourless and without interesting texture, only some form of shape property is likely to be relevant here. But if shape is the key, it is clearly not 3-D shape - the tracing is a tediously flat collection of 2-D shapes, the pyramid distinctively extended in three dimensions. What we need is some shape property which the two nonetheless share. To discover what this property might be, we need to do a little geometry. Consider the base and the
angles at points? Fortunately, there are familiar phenomena which suggest that we do. As various thinkers from Euclid onwards have noted, a round wagon wheel seen obliquely looks elliptical, and parallel lines receding towards the horizon seem to converge.^20 Our experience does not misrepresent the 3-D shape of these things - we are not for a moment tempted to believe that the wheel has deformed, or that a straight road tapers as it recedes. Nor need we take the phenomena to show that our experiences have non-representational properties. 21 We can avoid both these ways of misdescribing the phenomena if we suppose that what we are seeing is outline shapes of the objects in question. For example, when the wheel looks elliptical to us we are seeing its outline shape at the point from which we are looking, an outline shape which differs from that it has when not seen obliquely. We do not, of course, think of the elliptical appearance of the wheel in these terms; but then we do not usually conceptualise this aspect of our experience at all - any more than we do many other properties we experience, such as the precise 3-D shape we see a lump of rock as having. So the thought is that to see something O in some part P of a surface S is to see P as resembling O in outline shape. Now, a little more is needed for a complete account of seeing-in. For depiction often exploits colour as well as shape, and when it does the experience of seeing something in the picture also involves colour - as when I see a red-breasted robin in a picture. This is not always so: some pictures are simply neutral with respect to the colour of the objects they depict - charcoal drawings, for example. We see things in these pictures, but not coloured things. We can accommodate both sorts of case if we say that seeing-in must involve seen resemblance in outline shape, and may involve seen resemblance in colour.^22 This, like any other characterisation of seeing-in, can provide the basis for a theory of depiction. However, before we can offer that theory, we must acknowledge that there is more to depiction than seeing-in. Two lacunae in particular confront us. First, as Wollheim has stressed,^23 it is not sufficient for a surface to depict an item that we see the item in it. For we sometimes see things in naturally formed surfaces such as frosted window panes,
and these surfaces do not depict at all. They no more depict than naturally formed marks in the shape of words would describe anything. Moreover, even when a surface does depict something a viewer may see something else in it - as when I see John McEnroe in a photograph of my brother. To fill this gap we need to appeal to the history of the surface. Often the relevant aspect of its history will be the intentions of those who are responsible for its being as it is. Thus when an oil painting depicts a horse it does so both because we see a horse in it, and because the artist intended that a horse be seen there. No such intentions apply to frosted window panes, and that is why they do not depict. However, intention cannot alone fill the gap. For mechanical means of making pictures, such as photography, allow for depiction which is to a high degree independent of anyone's intentions. Consider a photograph taken by a spy satellite floating over a hostile country. Back at base we see a new form of weapon in the photograph, and that is what the photo depicts. However, we may up to then have had no conception of such a weapon, and our enemies presumably hoped to hide it from the satellite's prying eye. So while this picture is a product of a system intended to do certain things, no one intended that we see in it quite what we do. The surface depicts the weapon not because anyone intended it to, but because the weapon is causally responsible for its being as it is - in particular for its being so marked that we see the weapon in it. Now, it is clear that the causal relation which is important here is a special one. If the new weapon is turned on our satellite before a photograph is taken, the blast may damage the photographic film, miraculously producing a surface in which the weapon itself can be seen. This surface does not depict the weapon, even though the weapon is partially responsible for the marks, for the causal relation here is not appropriate. The right causal relation is rather whatever relation it is which is centrally involved in all photography. This is not the place to investigate that relation. Whatever it turns out to be, we will need to appeal to it in a full account of depiction, for instance to explain why the photograph of my brother does not depict McEnroe. The answer is that McEnroe is not causally responsible in this special way for my seeing him in the surface.^24
attempt those explanations. Putting all this together, and allowing that some unclarities remain, I suggest that for our purposes here we assume that the following conditions are necessary and jointly sufficient for a surface S to depict something O: (1) there is some part of S, P, and some viewer V, such that, were V to see S under its intended viewing conditions, V would see O in P; (2) Either (1) is true because someone intended that it be true, or it is true because S is causally related (in some special way) to O. When joined to our characterisation of seeing-in, these conditions provide a little theory of depiction. This theory leaves many issues untouched, and many questions unanswered. There is, however, enough here to provide the basic materials for the explanations we seek. If those materials need supplementing, we can do that as we proceed. (5) The easiest explanandum to begin with is (x2). Why is it not possible to represent something pictorially without representing it from some point of view? According to the little theory above, if a surface depicts something it must be possible to see that thing in it. Thus we will have the answer to our question if we can understand why the only things seen in surfaces are items oriented to a certain point. To see an object in a surface is to see the surface as resembling that object in outline shape. This experience must involve two outline shapes - that of the surface and that of the object. It is the latter outline shape which concerns us here. Outline shape is relative to a point, it is a matter of the solid angle subtended by the object at some point. By involving the object's outline shape, our experience must involve the corresponding point. This is the point we see the object in the surface as oriented to, and this the point from which it is depicted. If this explanation is to work, it is important to be clear on two matters. First, the object the surface is seen as resembling need not be some particular. Experiences of resemblance, like many other forms of experience (visualising, hallucinating, ordinary seeing), can have as part of their content merely some thing with certain properties. Thus the above talk of the object's outline shape is not to be taken as implying that there is an object with an outline shape; rather, it is shorthand for the claim that the
experience must have as part of its content both the object and an outline shape for that object. Were this not the case, the explanation would only apply to the depiction of particulars - and hence only to some of the cases (x2) covers. Second, we must understand seen resemblance in outline shape correctly. The explanation exploits the fact that outline shape is relative to a point, and this relativity might seem enough by itself to ensure that our theory can explain (x2). Unfortunately, the fact that our theory ties the notion of outline shape to that of experienced resemblance complicates matters here. For suppose that there is an object with an outline shape, that the picture has a similar one, and that as a result the viewer of the picture is put in mind of the object. In such a case, the object has an outline shape, but there is no need for the viewer's experience to involve that shape, and thus the above explanation cannot get started. So it is important that this is not a case of experienced resemblance in outline shape. Instead there is here at most an experience of resemblance, which experience is in fact sustained by similarity in outline shape. What seeing-in requires is rather stronger - an experience of resemblance in outline shape.^26 The viewer must see an item before her, be aware of its outline shape, and see that thing as similar in that respect to something with another, similar, outline shape. Thus two outline shapes enter the content of the experience - the second embedded in the content: similar to .... And thus the explanation goes through.^27 What of (x1)? Why is it not possible to depict a particular without ascribing some properties to it, and why must depicted properties be reasonably determinate? Let us consider particulars first. We have just seen, in discussing (x2), that seeing-in requires an experience of resemblance with a special content. That content must include an item which the surface is seen as resembling, but it must also include an outline shape for that item. This will be so even when the item is a particular. Thus if a particular is seen in a picture what is seen therein must be a particular with at least one property - a certain outline shape. How determinate must this outline shape be? This question brings us to the second part of (x1), the degree of determinacy required in the depiction of properties.
