Picture

Abstract

Pictures are a presentation whose structure is decomposable into a surface, an arrangement of markings, the appearance of something in front of, before or behind the surface, the reference to a scene of the real or a possible world, whose aspects and concrete or abstract states of affairs are displayed by the appearance. Pictures are a kind of markings, namely patterns perceived on a surface, which do not yet convey information about it. Markings depend on surfaces. No marking exists without a surface, while the opposite is true. There is a variety of markings according to the technique and the tools chosen to produce them. Surfaces serve as a medium either as a support or as that which affords the properties for particular manipulations. The appearances, which occur on the basis of markings, regard the configurational property of pictures. Philosophical and psychological theories address issues concerning the struc- ture of pictures with distinct approaches.