'Picking Up' Perspective in Pictures

Gregory Currie argues a narrator provides a point of view, a 'way of responding to the world.' Like literary works, pictures can similarly provide a set of resources for interpreting the world — iconic representations often embody a point of view that their spectators can access. In this paper, I prepare an account of the resources available for a spectator to extract a perspective from pictures. Utilizing Camp's notion of perspective, I demonstrate that there are elements available in pictures that embody characterizations, and introduce three resources to facilitate spectators in extracting perspective: expression and expressiveness, style, and title. I argue that perspective in pictures functions analogously to a narrator in literary works, allowing spectators to 'pick up' and 'try on' the perspective embodied within a pictorial work.