• Presented with visual cues the mind constructs meaningful objects. The visual cues may bear little optical resemblance to the objects they depict, yet still decisively invoke those objects.• In this sense, the process of identifying objects in the world is the same as identifying objects in a depiction: each presents a set of visual cues that the mind categorises as objects. We can be just as unsure or mistaken about how to interpret visual cues from the world as from pictures.
• The primary difference between seeing object in an image and in reality is that in reality we recognise objects more or less directly, that is without seeing anything else at the same time, whereas in pictures we recognise the object depicted, the medium of depiction (paint, ink wood), the vehicle of depiction (piece of paper, oil-covered canvas) — as well as other things: a Picasso collage, a cubist artwork, an modernist composition, etc.. In other words, recognition in depiction is multifold.
