Richard Wollheim in His Well-Known

Richard Wollheim

In his well-known work Art and Its Objects, Richard Wollheim discusses his general aesthetic and perception of art. Wollheim deals with central issues germane to the philosophy and understanding of art. In essence his theories attempt to explain the subjectivist view of art and its critical analysis. As such he attempts to overcome certain problematic areas of the subjectivist approach. In order to construct a coherent, crucial and theoretical approach to art, subjectivism must be able to account for the differences and variations in individual perception. In other words, there has to be some standard of correctness and critical veracity. The answer to these problems in subjectivist interpretation forms the basis of the theoretical trajectory that underlines Wollheims' work in Art and Its Objects.

One of the central aspects in his analysis of the artistic object is his rejection of the Presentational theory of art and the 'physical-object hypothesis'. This theory states that artworks cannot be identified with physical objects. In Art and Its Objects his concern is to "combat some of the traditional arguments for denying the physical nature of artworks." (ALCARAZ J. 2004)

Wollheim's criticism of the physical-object hypothesis is aimed at "...providing an account of art experience that includes our perceiving representational and expressive properties as well as aesthetic ones in artworks." (ibid)

The Presentational Theory is strongly based on the distinction between 'properties that we immediately perceive and those which are mediately perceived or inferred.' (Wollheim, Richard 1980. p 44) This in essence means that artworks cannot be identified with physical objects and entities due to the status given to expressive and representational properties in perception.

Therefore Wollheim provides an account of art and art perception which "does not require an idealization of our experience of art." (ALCARAZ J. 2004) the main trajectory of Wollheim's argument is to develop a theory of perception which considers art in an inclusive and non-dualistic fashion.

In order to understand the significance of the physical-object hypothesis it is important to the central non-dualistic thrust in Art and its objects, and the aspect which leads to his theory of intentionality, namely the concept of "seeing-in." This view is based on the assumption that we have the innate ability to see representationally. By this is meant that we see an object in the paint that marks a surface rather than alternatively seeing marks or seeing an object." (Alpers Svetlana, 2004)

In order to counter the various arguments of the physical-object hypothesis, Wollheim states that we must take into account this special representational ability when dealing with artworks. This is the ability of seeing-in which 'allows us to have perceptual experiences of things that are not present to the senses'. (Wollheim, Richard 1980. p 217) Fundamentally, and simplistically, the theory of seeing-in posits the view that the rejections and arguments against physicality in art are based on a flawed view of the artistic perception. This theory also refers to the important aspect of 'twofoldness', which is essentially a non-dualistic view of artistic apperception. Twofoldness refers to the fact that "we can simultaneously pay attention to the configurational aspect of a painting (the marked surface) and to the recognition aspect (the depicted subject in it)." (ALCARAZ J. 2004)

In other words, twofoldness allows for simultaneous attention in terms of configurational and the recognitional fields. Therefore Wollheim posits a view of artistic perception which is "the phenomenology that defines the experience 'twofoldness'." (Hyman, John, 2003)

In his work, Painting as an Art, Wollheim explains this idea of twofoldness.

Seeing-in is a distinct kind of perception and is triggered by the presence within the field of vision of a differentiated surface. Not all differentiated surfaces will have this effect, but I doubt that anything significant can be said about what exactly a surface must be like for it to have this effect. When the surface is right, then an experience with a certain phenomenology will occur, and it is this phenomenology that is distinctive about seeing-in. This distinctive phenomenological feature I call 'twofoldness' because when seeing-in occurs, two things happen: I am visually aware of the surface I look at, and I discern something standing out in front of, or (in certain cases), receding behind something else. (Wollheim: Painting as an Art, p. 46)

The above quote also provides a basis for understanding the view of type and token that he developed.

From the above understanding of artistic perception, Wollheim goes on to explain his solution to the main objection to subjectivist views of art; namely his thesis of artistic intentionality. His view of intentionality is based on a standardization of interpretation in art. Wollheim argues that art criticism is essentially a process of retrieval and therefore he argues that it is a reconstruction of the creative process which initiated the artwork. He asserts that an understanding of the artist's intention is essential in the critical assessment of a work of art.

Wollheim also distinguishes between types and universals in artworks. Artworks are types rather than universals for Wollheim. There are some interesting parallels with Wollheim's views on this aspect and Platonic forms and particulars. However, Wollheim points out that the way types are to be understood differs from the perception of universals. Types are where "we correlate a class of particulars with a piece of human invention: these particulars may then be regarded as tokens of a certain type." (ALCARAZ J. 2004) the difference between types and universals is illustrated by the following example from Wollheim.