Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 79 (1):52-63 (2021)
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The idea that looking at a photograph is akin to face-to-face perception and that photographs provide genuine perceptual access to the objects they depict was notoriously defended by Kendall Walton in “Transparent Pictures.” Walton’s main thesis is that photographs are transparent in the sense that we can see objects through them. The main goal of this article is to support Walton’s view by providing a full account of photographic transparency. I will argue that the transparency that characterizes photography is not metaphorical but in fact exhibits all the essential properties of transparent materials. To understand how a photograph can be transparent, one must understand the special type of causal connection between a photograph and what it shows. Building on Fritz Heider’s work, I will argue that photography is a visual medium, like air, water, glass, or mirrors, capable of transmitting the visual properties of distant objects to the perceiver.
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DOI | 10.1093/jaac/kpaa009 |
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References found in this work BETA
The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception: Classic Edition.James J. Gibson - 1979 - Houghton Mifflin.
Transparent Pictures: On the Nature of Photographic Realism.Kendall L. Walton - 1984 - Critical Inquiry 11 (2):246-277.
Depiction, Pictorial Experience, and Vision Science.Robert Briscoe - 2016 - Philosophical Topics 44 (2):43-81.
Gombrich and the Duck-Rabbit.Robert Eamon Briscoe - 2018 - In Michael Beaney (ed.), Aspect Perception After Wittgenstein: Seeing-as and Novelty. Routledge. pp. 49-88.
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8 ( #90,600 of 2,506,495 )
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