Richter Vs. Mitchell

Richter discusses how Booth was concerned with “implied audiences (Richter 64),” in which “the author makes texts that will engage or persuade their audiences (Richter 964).” In the case of Mitchell’s metapictures, the artist can be seen as the author and they try to engage readers toward noticing that it is a picture about pictures. Metapictures are also a way for the artist to frame what they want the audience to see. It is forcing them to only view the picture the way the artist wants them too, which is how the pictures are “self- referential meaning they are a uniting theme for accounts of modern art that might seem, at first glance, to be radically opposed (Mitchell 36).” I feel that Richter and Mitchell have similar ideas when it comes to “the audience playing a vitally important role in shaping the literary experience and the desire to help to explain that role (Richter 962).” The audiences role is important because they are responsible for "decoding the symbols on the page (Rihter 965)" and that will create their literary experience. Decoding the symbols depedns on the readers interpretation. Mithell would describe this “as fact, we do not look at the scene of the drawing, but imagine the activity of the artist (Mitchell 40).” Looking at the scene is the way the reader sees the frame placed by the artist, which allows them to interpret the text or the picture themselves.