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

Reproduction is one of the elements of a work of art which together with presentation, and representation make up its threefoldness. I understand reproduction in terms of an anticipation of unimodal resemblance comparable to that of exemplification--this anticipation is the work of imagination. There is a visually reproductive element in all figurative pictures, and it is optimal--overwriting the presentational and, therefore, representational element--in mechanically reproduced images such as photos and film shots. There is a measure of depth in photography which introduces the element of embodied perception, but when we move our heads the relative position of photographed things--those in the 'front' and those in the 'back'--will not change. Therefore, photographs are not transparent to their object: we do not see them directly--as we do in perception. (I:4-6; VII:3) Cf. Walton, Friday.