Solveig Aasen: "Dimensions of Depictive Content"

Solveig Aasen, University of Oslo: "Dimensions of Depictive Content"

Abstract
This paper is an investigation into the seemingly straightforward fact that drawings look drawn and paintings look painted. The point of interest is not that the marks on the concrete picture surface look drawn. That drawn look can be appreciated when simply seeing the surface as such, and not as a picture. But there is also a drawn look visible only when seeing a drawing as a picture, i.e. when seeing something in the surface – as we usually do. I will refer to this drawn look as the ‘drawn character’ of a drawing. The drawn character of a picture is a dimension of pictorial content (i.e., of what is seen in a picture) that constitutes the way the picture presents its objects. In this respect, it is analogous to the mode of presentation of a linguistic expression. One aim of the paper is to make clearer what a drawn character can be. A second, intertwining aim is to analyse how the drawn character figures in the aesthetic experience of a picture. A central hypothesis is that there is an ‘immersed’ way to aesthetically appreciate pictures wherein the drawn character contributes to but does not figure in pictorial content. Examples of this include both children’s appreciation of drawings in fairy tale books, and experts’ experiences of cubist paintings.