Abstract

Resemblances between colour pictures and their subject-matter can be identified. I use insights from perceptual psychology to develop a description of these shared colour properties. While resemblances do exist, they do not support resemblance theories of depiction. Instead, the character of these resemblances is determined by the construction of our visual system, and is not necessary for depiction. These results support a theory of depiction which holds that our abilities of visual recognition are crucial to our ability to understand pictures