The longer you work, the more the mystery deepens of what appearance is, or how what is called appearance can be made in another medium." Francis Bacon, painter
This, in a nutshell, is the central problem in the theory of art. It has fascinated philosophers from Plato to Wittgenstein. And it fascinates artists and art historians, who have always drawn extensively on philosophical ideas about language and representation, and on ideas about vision and the visible world that have deep philosophical roots.
John Hyman s "The Objective Eye" is a radical treatment of this problem, deeply...