Art and Experience, Utrecht, © 1996. All rights reserved

Exemplification is what samples do. According to Goodman, who introduced the term into aesthetics, exemplification is possession of a 'property' plus reference to the label which denotes this 'property'. He thinks expression is metaphorical exemplification, and representation is quite the reverse of it. I argue that the notion of expressive, or metaphorical, samples is an oxymoron. (I:5). If, instead, we understand exemplification as being an anticipation of the imagination--we anticipate the sample to be qualifiedly identical to some other object--then it may serve rather as an explanatory device for the resemblancea central to reproduction and depiction (cf. Arrell) (I:5). Expression, on the contrary, is an intimatory aspect of the artistic presentation. (III:4; VII:4).