Practice question · Sort into groups
Sort each art by whether it is AUTOGRAPHIC or ALLOGRAPHIC in Goodman's sense.
Groups: Autographic · Allographic
- A symphony as written in a score
- A novel as printed text
- Oil painting
- A poem recited from a page
- Carved marble sculpture
- A fresco on a wall
Hints
- Ask whether the notion of a forgery makes sense.
- A printed score is not a forgery of Beethoven; a copied canvas can be a forgery of Vermeer.
Show the answer
Autographic: Oil painting, Carved marble sculpture, A fresco on a wall
Allographic: A symphony as written in a score, A novel as printed text, A poem recited from a page
Why
The test is whether forgery is a meaningful category. A perfect copy of a painting is a forgery because the history of its production is part of the work; a correct printing of a novel is simply the novel. Photography and printmaking sit awkwardly between the two, which is why they are so often the interesting cases.
Practise Is Art a Language?
The app has 4 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. Art History I is free to start.
More questions on Is Art a Language?
- Why does Goodman conclude that painting cannot be a notation?
- An image can express negation as directly as a sentence can.
- Which respects does the language analogy genuinely capture?
- Complete the vocabulary of the lesson.
- How many modes of reference does Peirce's trichotomy distinguish?
- Match each mode of reference to how it works.
- If art functions strictly as an allographic language, what follows for the art historian confronted with a…
- Arrange these steps of asking how an image refers, in the order they are useful.
- A halo conveys sanctity by resemblance rather than by convention.