Pictures: Crafting and Beholding

Abstract

. The psychogenesis of visual awareness is an autonomous process in the sense that you do not “do” it. However, you have some control due to your acting in the world. We share this process with many animals. Pictorial awareness appears to be truly human. Here situational awareness splits into an “everyday vision” and a “pictorial” mode. Here we focus mainly on spatial aspects of pictorial art. You have no control whatever over the picture’s structure. The pictorial awareness is pure imagery, constrained by the (physical) structure of the picture. Crafting pictures and beholding pictures are distinct, but closely related, acts. We present an account from experimental and formal phenomenology. It results in a generic model that accounts for the bulk of formal (rare) and informal (common) observations.