So far as I can determine -- with a very cursory glance at the beginning of the article -- the central premiss of Kuvicki's article is that a
realistic depiction of something is one that matches our previous mental image or knowledge of it. This strikes me as a circular argument in saying in effect that a depiction is realistic if it is recognized as conforming to our predetermined view of it. If our a distorted or exaggerated mental image of something is thought to be realistic then a similarly distorted depiction of it will be taken as realistic, according to Kuvicki. If I draw a wild caricature of president Obama and it happens to match someone's mental image of him, then for that person, the caricature is realistic. This is not a test of verity but an unverifiable test of matching a depiction to some mental image without any third model that can be a standard for the other two. Be that as it may, I am unconvinced that any depiction at all can satisfy any test of verity since there is an imaginative function to cognition that cannot be fully objectified. That's why no two images can be absolutely alike or perceived in exactly the same way or interpreted in exactly the same way by two or more people or by the same person at different times. Since a dragon is an imaginative creature however much derived from actual animals, a depiction of it can only call to mind other similar depictions and likely animals. In one sense we can't represent what doesn't exist (a dragon) but we can represent other depictions of that which doesn't exist otherwise. A picture of a dragon only represents other pictures of dragons. But a picture of a horse can represent other pictures of horses and a real flesh and blood horse. My article, Abstract Painting and Integrationist Linguistics will be in the July issue of Language Sciences. For online access go to Science Direct and then search under my name or send me address for an offprint in July. WC ----- Original Message ---- From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Fri, May 20, 2011 4:58:54 PM Subject: Pictorial Realism as Verity Conger's objections to representing things which don't exist in nature are met in the essay by John Kulvicki,published in the summer 2006 issue of the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism,which is available on JSTOR,itself probably part of the electronic resources of many public libraries by entering your library card number. This essay specifically mentions dragons. Kate Sullivan
