The Pleasure of Pictures Pictorial Experience and Aesthetic Appreciation

The general aim of this volume is to investigate the nature of the relation between pictorial experience and aesthetic appreciation. In particular, it is concerned with the character and intimacy of this relationship: is there a mere causal connection between pictorial experience and aesthetic appreciation, or are the two relata constitutively associated with one another? The essays in the book’s first section investigate important conceptual issues related to the pictorial experience of paintings. In Section II, the essays discuss the notion of styles, techniques, agency, and facture, and also take into account the experience of photographic and cinematic pictures. The Pleasure of Pictures goes substantially beyond current debates in the philosophy of depiction to launch a new area of reflection in philosophical aesthetics.

Introduction: Pictorial Experience and Aesthetic Appreciation: A Puzzling RelationJérôme Pelletier and Alberto VoltoliniPart I: Appreciation of Artworks1. Seeing the Light: Aesthetic Appreciation and Understanding PicturesElisabeth Schellekens2. Pictures: Their Power in PracticeDominic McIver Lopes3. It’s a Great Work But I Don’t Like It: On the Differences between Aesthetic Evaluation and AppreciationClotilde Calabi, Wolfgang Huemer and Marco SantambrogioPart II: Pictorial Experience and Aesthetic Appreciation4. Pictorial Experience and Aesthetic Appreciation: Wollheim Reassessed and VindicatedAlberto Voltolini5. Pictorial Experience and Perceptual ActivityJohn Zeimbekis6. Threefold Pictorial Experience and Aesthetic AttitudeRegina-Nino Mion7. Stylistic Deformity and Pictorial ExperienceKaterina Bantinaki8. Inflection and RepresentationJérôme Pelletier9. Temporal Images: The Anamorphic Game and the Nature of PicturePaolo Spinicci10. Art Made for PicturesJohn Kulvicki and Bence NanayPart III: Cinematic Appreciation11. Sculpting in Time: Temporally Inflected Experience of CinemaRobert Hopkins12. Why to Watch a Film TwiceEnrico TerronePart IV: Aesthetic Appreciation, Agency and Facture13. Pictures and their SurfacesGregory Currie14. Neo-Impressionism Touch and FactureGeorges Roque15. Evidence of Facture and the Appreciative Relevance of Artistic ActivityDavid Davies

Jérôme Pelletier is a Statutary Member at the Institut Jean Nicod, Paris, FranceAlberto Voltolini is Professor in Philosophy of Mind at the University of Turin, Italy