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Etienne Gilson was a French philosopher and historian of philosophy, especially medieval philosophy, The book is about the kind of reality proper to paintings and their relation to the natural order. He writes in the Preface:My own problem exactly is: what has a philosopher to learn from painting? This book, therefore, is the work of a philosopher asking himself philosophical questions on what he happens to know about a certain art. Just as we can philosophize about science, about history, or about religion, so also we can philosophize about art. The first chapter of this book will make clear, I hope, the reason it has seemed advisable to confine this inquiry to what philosophy can learn only from the art of painting."

36:T6de, This is a wonderful book for anyone interested in what makes a good painting. It is a very eloquent reflection by a philosopher, Gilson, as part of the Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts. Gilson's ideas are considered a bit passé in the art world now, but they're still worth reading. He's largely arguing against the position that paintings are supposed to say something. For example, he argues that paintings are essentially non-representational. So he distinguished between paintings and pictures. Pictures are representative; the best picture is the one that looks the most like what it is suppo