Scruton’s Equivalency Thesis
In Photography and Representation, Scruton advances the view that photography cannot be described as a representational art form in the same sense as painting, and that the photograph is unworthy of aesthetic appreciation in and of itself. Indeed, Scruton suggests that it is not even possible to have an aesthetic interest in the photograph, as such interest is necessarily directed towards its subject. In this sense, photography is merely a facilitator of seeing. It is no more a representational art form than viewing a scene through a pair of spectacles, or observing an object through a magnifying glass. It is a simply a tool for seeing-through, and what one perceives in a photograph is quite literally the object
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The first of these, the style argument, as articulated by King, states that the “purely abstract features of a photograph” regularly appear to evoke aesthetic interest in an audience (King, 1992, 260). King thus suggests that Scruton’s argument undermines the stylistic choices which a photographer autonomously makes; it is possible to seek to engage with a photograph merely in virtue of its photographic surface, by perceiving features such as its luminosity or contrast, for example. Such appreciation is not dependent upon one having an interest in the subject photographed (King, 1992, 264). For instance, when one marvels over Ansel Adams’ photograph of a road she is aesthetically interested in the photographer’s miraculous ability to create contrast, rather than the road, and hence the photograph does more than merely act as an instrument for seeing-through to the scene (King, 1992, 264). As such, the photographer makes artistic decisions in the same way that a painter might, and these are demonstrated in the stylistic elements of the photographic surface. Whilst all of the above may be plausible, the style argument, as McIver Lopes notes, fails to address what he refers to as Scruton’s object argument, suggesting that the style argument does not endow one with a reason to “deny that the photographed object… is the object of our attention when we see a photograph and understand it as a photograph, even …show more content…
Whilst the relationship which the photograph bears to its subject may be entirely different to the relationship which the painting bears to its subject, this does not necessarily entail that one must reject the photograph as an equally worthy object of aesthetic appreciation. As a final remark, in addition to photography’s capacity to arouse an interest in the subject photographed in a manner that transcends face-to-face viewing, the fact that the photograph boasts the ability to suspend its subject in time is also indicative of its transcendence of face-to-face viewing. If one takes an aesthetic interest in Vivian Maier’s photographs of children playing in a street in the 1950’s, for instance, this would evidently not be equivalent to viewing the same subjects directly in the present moment. As such, the photograph’s ‘distance’ from its subject, both physical and temporal, is perhaps further reason to distinguish it from face-to-face seeing, and may be indicative of its worth as a visual art form. Thus, contra Scruton, paintings and photographs are equally worthy of aesthetic appreciation as visual art forms, and photographic transparency is not synonymous with photographic
Having such an image before our eyes, often we fail to recognize the message it is trying to display from a certain point of view. Through Clark’s statement, it is evident that a photograph holds a graphic message, which mirrors the representation of our way of thinking with the world sights, which therefore engages other
The role of photography is questioned; he asks, what about photography makes it a valid medium? We read about the operator (the photographer), spectrum (the subject) and spectator (the viewer), also about the stimulus (what we see in the photograph) and the punctum (the unclassifiable, the thing that makes the photograph important to the viewer). According to Barthes, the photograph is an adventure for the viewer, but it is ultimately death, the recording of something that will be dead after the picture is taken. This idea is the main focus of Barthes’ writing, the photograph “that-has-been”, in Latin “interfuit: what I see has been here, in this place which extends between infinity and the subject; it has been here, and yet immediately separated; it has been absolutely, irrefutably present, and yet already deferred” (Barthes, 76).... ...
ABSTRACT: British Avant-Garde art, poses a challenge to traditional aesthetic analysis. This paper will argue that such art is best understood in terms of Wittgenstein¡¦s concept of "seeing-as," and will point out that the artists often use this concept in describing their work. This is significant in that if we are to understand art in terms of cultural practice, then we must actually look at the practice. We will discuss initiatives such as the work of Damien Hirst, most famous for his animals in formaldehyde series, and that of Simon Patterson, who warps diagrams, e.g., replacing the names of stops on London Underground maps with those of philosophers. Cornelia Parker¡¦s idea that visual appeal is not the most important thing, but rather that the questions that are set up in an attempt to create an "almost invisible" art are what are central, will also be discussed. Also, if we concur with Danto¡¦s claims that "contemporary art no longer allows itself to be represented by master narratives," that Nothing is ruled out.", then it is indeed fruitful to understand art in terms of seeing-as. For application of this concept to art explains what occurs conceptually when the viewer shifts from identifying a work, as an art object, and then as not an art object, and explains why nothing is ruled out.
The art world of photography is changing all the time. Peter Schjeldahl starts out with a very strong and well written paragraph about the world of art. Peter Schjeldahl says, “You can always tell a William Eggleston photograph. It’s the one in color that hits you in the face and leaves you confused and happy, and perhaps convinces you that you don’t understand photography nearly as well as you thought you did”. These couple of sentences are very strong and flow so well together, and they grab the reader’s attention. Peter explains how William Eggleston was known as a great American photographer.
Ansel Adams thought that Stieglitz explanation about photography was the most valid statement of the roots of creativity. Adams was opposed to the pictorialist movement, this...
Even though an individual’s response is subjective, hermeneutical aesthetics focuses on interpretive incompleteness as part of the way human, viewers of artworks included, are in the world. An artwork is always experienced in the present from a particular present point of view and its interpretation is the transmission of meanings across time. In this way the artworks discussed in this thesis bear witness to particular historical events and allow for possible projections of those past events into the future. Contemporary life is permeated with a diversity of visual information. In such an atmosphere the hermeneutic approach provides a way of understanding the applications of the meaning we make of visual input. In light of it, the responsibility of both artist and viewer is among the issues discussed in the last part ‘Beyond Horizons’. Here the perspective moves to weave together the threads of ideas and issues that have been identified in the ‘Fusion of Horizons’ section, and reflects on aspects that reverberate beyond the shifting possibilities within the
Taking into consideration Roger Ballen’s opinion, that when the viewers take a look at a photograph they ought to experience that instant existed in time; that it is genuine. (Amison 2014: http://www.gommamag.com/v6/?p=1922) One can derive that regardless of the pain expressed in the image that it belongs to a life of the subject in the photograph - it is merely a moment within their life and even though it is crammed with narrative, it is only one fragment of the subject’s life. It’s like something occurred or is about to, yet in the particular instance, nothing is taking place; it is captured eter...
When entering the room, one cannot help but feel pulled into each and every painting. The realization that the artwork hanging on the walls was created hundreds of years ago, and still exists in pristine order, to me makes these pieces of art, relics. Gazing around the still and almost silent gallery, I could not help but think that each of these paintings are windows into the past. In his essay Ways of Seeing, John Berger states that “An image became a record of how X had seen Y” (136). At the time the paintings in this gallery were painte...
David Bate discusses this concept of contrasting conventions, whilst looking at what constitutes a surrealist photograph, and acknowledges the enterprises of the surrealist movement. “Surrealism shows itself as an interruption within ‘rational’ discourse...
Critically analyzing of visual media artifact investigates visual culture. An analysis entails image interpretation of image equally applicable to genres of photographs as form of advertisement. In this paper, I will critically examine photographs. According to Barrett (2011) he suggested that critic starts with description that involves developing a list of facts concerning the subject matter within the image. Description is a data gathering process of photograph (p. 17). It’s also establishing a typology of the photograph’s content matter. Similarly Bathes’ (1977) suggest that “all images are polysemous” (p. 38) because of the subject matter, hence creation of complexity for visual reader in making decision what aspect to read, pay attention or ignore of the photograph. The paper will discuss the wunderkammer series that contains nine photographs.
... over time – and the viewer’s personal experience, essentially her history. This gets very near to a common sense perspective – what we look at, and what we think about what we see has much to do with who we are and what we have experienced in life. Thus, art may be described as an interaction between the viewer, influenced by her experiences, with the work of art, inclusive of its history and the stories built up around it over time. When we look at art, we must acknowledge that the image is temporally stretched – there is more to it than meets the eye at present. What we learn from Didi-Huberman’s approach is to give this temporal ‘tension’ its due. Didi-Huberman describes and defends the importance of of how we look at artistic works: images that represent something determinate, while always remaining open to the presentation of something new and different.
...owever, when the image is presented as a work of art, his perception of the acquired influence our ideas about the art - representations relating to:
The point of this replacement lies in the photograph's not being the reflection of a fact made by an artist in a drawing, but a precisely caught and recorded fact. This precision and documentary quality make for such a forceful impression that, in painting or graphic art, it would be quite inadmissible. A poster with photographs is more effective than a poster with a drawing of the same subject.’ (Milner and
Image and text have long been used among the principal forms of representation, as a way of representing someone or something. Many photographers and writers have delved into this realm to challenge the power of representation, by this one mean to challenge whether image and text can fully convey the truthfulness in the reality in which they deem to represent. For example, the photographers this dissertation will be questioning in relation to image and text are Martha Rosler, Lorna Simpson, Jim Goldberg, Walker Evans and finally exploring author James Agee. Through this dissertation, I wish to explore how image and text work as a form of representations challenging whether they are an objective depiction of reality or if they are inadequate.
With this article art critic, Eleanor Heartney, discusses contemporary artists whose works forward a postmodernist view of reality, which holds no one perception of reality is any truer than another and that all realities are merely constructs of our individual minds and imaginations. Whether the works were crafted with the photographic lens alone or in combination with other media, the artists reviewed in this chapter often pair representational and abstract formalisms in commenting upon the subjective nature of truth and reality. In this respect, Heartney claims Vija Celmins and Chuck Close both dealt with precision, and extrusion in commenting upon the eye and mind working together to construct individual realties. Other artists like Vik Muniz and Malcolm Morley combined painting and the photographic images in