On the visibility of artworks and their aesthetic properties: dismissing a perplexity without representationalism

Supported by John McDowell’s conceptualism, Sonia Sedivy develops her conceptual realism as a response to a perplexity she identifies in Arthur C. Danto’s views on the theoretical and historical nature of artworks and their aesthetic properties. Namely, that at least some of these objects and properties are not visible. Considering the connection between the question on the visibility of artworks and their aesthetic properties and the broader issue of aesthetic realism, this paper challenges the assumption that representationalism is the only possible application of the apparatus from philosophy of perception to philosophical aesthetics. Drawing on Charles Travis’s anti-representationalism and Michael Martin’s non-representationalist account of looks, the paper proposes an alternative account of the historical and visible character of at least some aesthetic properties of artworks, one that does not rely on the assumption that they involve representational content.