pictures.
In aesthetics, following classical writers, a picture has been taken to be a mimesis, a representation of reality. But the word ‘representation’ here at once suggests the question which has absorbed recent writers. Do pictures denote as sentences or words denote? If they do, they must do so through conventions. Or do pictures resemble their objects? Either view faces problems. Why do artists accept with alacrity a new way of painting a wheel in motion if the new device is merely conventional? If pictures represent because they resemble their objects, how can a picture represent a mythological being? ... ...
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