Notation
Reversing orthodoxy, the philosopher Nelson Goodman (1968) starts from reference and attempts to assimilate resemblance. He denies resemblance as either necessary or sufficient condition for depiction but surprisingly, allows that it arises and fluctuates as a matter of usage or familiarity (1988, pp. 16–19).
For Goodman, a picture denotes. Denotation is divided between description; covering writing and extending to more discursive notation including music and dance scores, to depiction at greatest remove. However, a word does not grow to resemble its object, no matter how familiar or preferred. To explain how a pictorial notation does, Goodman proposes an analogue system, consisting of undifferentiated characters, a density of syntax and semantics and relative repleteness of syntax. These requirements taken in combination mean that a one-way reference running from picture to object encounters a problem. If its semantics is undifferentiated, then the relation flows back from object to picture. Depiction can acquire resemblance but must surrender reference. This is a point tacitly acknowledged by Goodman, conceding firstly that density is the antithesis of notation (1968, p. 160) and later that lack of differentiation may actually permit resemblance (1988, p. 131) A denotation without notation lacks sense.
Nevertheless Goodman’s framework is revisited by philosopher John Kulvicki (2006) and interestingly applied by art historian James Elkins (1999) to an array of hybrid artefacts, combining picture, pattern and notation.
Read more about this topic: Depiction