circumstances and exigencies of ordinary experience”^72 by an artistic repre-
sentation, these circumstances and exigencies themselves change. Artists
must often respect some rough precepts that are abstracted from what has
worked in the past, and practice on the model of prior artistic successes
helps. But artists must also be free to explore new materials, techniques, and
subject matters in response to changes in life.
Representation–verbal, visual, or otherwise–is then the product of
human activity in response to the object or subject matter of the representa-
tion. Mere matching between two things to the point of perfect resemblance
is neither necessary nor sufficient for representation. Instead, as Walton
notes,“for something to be an object of a representation [i.e. something that
the representation presents], it must have a causal role in the production of
the work; it must in one way or another figure in the process whereby the
representation came about, either by entering into the intentions with which
the work was produced or in some more‘mechanical’manner.”^73 Even such
perhapsprima faciemechanical a means of representation as photography
involves the intention on the part of the maker to make a representation of a
certain subject matter. The camera must be aimed and the shutter switch
pushed. The subject matter may be immediately fictional, particularly in
verbal representation, in that nonexistent persons and incidents are
described (or painted). But what is described must nonetheless be the kind
of thing that can be experienced and can be illuminated via its representa-
tion. (This may include such things as a marked surface or a sound pattern as
things to be experienced.)
When the representation is specifically artistic, then it will present things
or aspects of things from a point of view and with an emotional attitude of
engagement, fascination, horror, pity, and so forth that the audience will be
invited to share. Through this emotional engagement, the subject matter will
be illuminated and clarified. In particular, its significance as an object of
emotion within human life will be illuminated. In visual representation this
will happen by means of visual exploration of the surface (for painting,
photography, and other two-dimensional media) or of the object from mul-
tiple vantage points (for sculpture, architecture, and other three-dimensional
media). For example, in exploring a lion-hunting painting by Delacroix we(^72) Ibid., p. 139.
(^73) Walton,Mimesis as Make-Believe, p. 111.
50 An Introduction to the Philosophy of Art