Richard Wollheim on the Art of Painting Art as Representation and Expression

Richard Wollheim is one of the dominant figures in the philosophy of art, whose work has shown not only how paintings create their effects but why they remain important to us. His influential writings have focused on two core, interrelated questions: How do paintings depict? and how do they express feelings? In this collection of essays a distinguished group of thinkers in the fields of art history and philosophical aesthetics offers a critical assessment of Wollheim’s theory of art. Among the themes under discussion are Wollheim’s explanation of pictorial representation in terms of seeing-in, his views of artistic expression as a type of complex projection, and his notion of the internal spectator. In the final essay Wollheim himself responds to the contributors. This book will be eagerly sought out by all serious students of the theory of art, whether in departments of philosophy or art history.

List of contributors; Relevant works by Richard Wollheim and their abbreviations as used in this volume; Preface; Introduction Rob van Gerwen; Part I. Representation: 1. On pictorial representation Richard Wollheim; 2. Wollheim on pictorial representation Jerrold Levinson; 3. The limits of twofoldness: a defence of the concept of pictorial thought Andrew Harrison; 4. A hypothesis about seeing-in Monique Roelofs; 5. Communication and the art of painting Anthony Savile; 6. Twofoldedness: from transcendental imagination to pictorial art Paul Crowther; Part II. Expression: 7. Wollheim on correspondence, projective properties and expressive perception Malcolm Budd; 8. The artistry of depiction Michael Podro; 9. Style and value in the art of painting Carolyn Wilde; 10. Expression as representation Rob van Gerwen; 11. Wollheim on expression (and representation) Graham McFee; Part III. The Internal Spectator: 12. Viewing making painting Svetlana Alpers; 13. The staging of spectatorship Renée van de Vall; 14. Presentation or representation Susan L. Feagin; 15. The case for the internal spectator: aesthetics or art history? Caroline van Eck; 16. The spectator in the picture Robert Hopkins; 17. A word on behalf of 'the merely visual' Michael Baxandall; Part IV. Reply: 18. A reply to the contributors Richard Wollheim; Bibliography; Index.

Richard Wollheim is one of the dominant figures in the philosophy of art. In this collection, a distinguished group of thinkers in the fields of art history and philosophical aesthetics offers a critical assessment of Wollheim's theory of art. In the final essay Wollheim himself responds to the contributors.