The question of truth as it emerges in the experience of art
p 72
Obviously a symbol is something which has value not only because of its contents, but because it can be "produced" --i.e. because it is a document by which members of the a community recognize one another.
p 91
As an articulated reading of what is there, vision disregards much of what is there, so that for sight, it is simply not there anymore. So too expectations lead it to "read in" what is not there at all.
p 102
Play has its own essence, independent of the consciousness of those who play.
p 105
It is obviously not correct to say that animals too play, nor is it correct to say that, metaphorically speaking, water and light play as well. Rather, on the contrary, we can say that man too plays. His playing too is a natural process.
p 115
"Presentation" (Darstellung) is the mode of being of the work of art.
p 122
We started from the position that the work of art is play --i.e, that its actual being cannot be detached from its presentation and that in its presentation the unity and identity of a structure emerge.
p 152
The essence of a picture is situated, as it were, halfway between two extremes: the extremes of replication are pure indication (Verweisung: also, reference), which is the essence of the sign, and pure substitution (Vertreten), which is the essence of the symbol. There is something of both in a picture. Its representing includes indicating what is representing in it.
Neither a sign nor a poster is a picture. [...] There is something schematic and abstract about [all signs], because they point not to themselves but to what is not present.
p 154
That the concept of representation (Repräsentation) we used above to describe the picture essentially belongs here shows the proximity between pictorial representation and symbolic representation.