"What does it mean to say a painting thinks? The central claim of this invigorating book is not that a painting can show thought happening, as in depictions of melancholics musing, head on hand; nor that it can illustrate philosophical concepts. Nor does Hanneke Grootenboer want to argue that a painting is a way of working out a philosophical conundrum; nor even that it can prompt theorisation about the nature of reality, artifice and representation. She argues, instead, for something weirder-and more suggestive. . . . she asks: 'Do we, as viewers, find ourselves pondering these things, or is the painting as such pensive?' Grootenboer wants to affirm the latter."–Kathryn Murphy "Apollo"