Images and Pictures

The relationship between pictures and images – not only the retinal images processed in visual perception but also the mental images of memories, dreams and visualisations – have been objects of scientific investigation since the late nineteenth century, and philosophical speculation since antiquity. But what art historians mean by ‘image’ varies considerably, depending on the scholar’s language and approach (Bild’ has a wider extension than ‘picture’; social imaginaries’ are not just in your head). Sometimes, ‘image’ simply designates an artefact specifically made to be seen in terms of its visible configuration; at other times, the injunction to ‘look at such-and-such an image’ could be oxymoronic. This session re-appraises the multi-faceted problem by asking: in what senses do pictures on the wall require, replicate and revise images constituted in the ‘mind’s eye’, and/or vice versa? The historiography and current research on this matter, inside and outside art history, are rich. Do pre-modern and non-Western theories and practices of visualisation contain untapped intellectual resources? What uses – and abuses – have been made of the concept of ‘projection’ (an ‘internal’ image informing and even materialising as ‘external’), as theorised, for example, in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy? What are the cultural and historical implications of neuro-cognitive diversity in visualising, from ‘eideticism’ or ‘hyper-phantasia’ (rich and replete recall of ‘images’ seen) to ‘aphantasia’ (thinking and recall without visual imagery)? Is speaking in a rigorous and cohesive way of (external) pictures and (internal) images even possible, or are the disciplinary boundaries too great?

Submit your Paper via this form. Please download, complete and send it directly to the Session Convenor(s) below by Sunday 2 November 2025:

Whitney Davis, University of California at Berkeley (USA)/University of York (UK), wmdavis@berkeley.edu.

Matthew MacKisack, Independent Scholar, m.mackisack@exeter.ac.uk