The author presents a method for identifying the sequence of stages of the creative process in painting, specifically an artist's decisions about such parameters as genre, composition, color structure, etc. The method is based on the calculation of the coefficients of informativity relating to the distribution (and hence, entropy) of the artist's works over the above parameters. Using this method, 240 paintings by three famous Russian artists (Pavel

The author discusses James Turrell's artworks in relation to contemporary disputes about the nature of color. The idea of Turrell's pieces as “pure chromatic sensations” is implausible to per-ceptual psychologists who have adopted the ecological approach of J.J. Gibson. Such psychologists view visual sensations as mere symptoms of the stimulation of the photoreceptors in our retinae. Their idea goes against the tradi-tional theory of color. The ten-dency of philosophers throughout history has been to take colors to be the exemplary instances of simple, unanalyzable qualities. However, the difficulties of prov-ing that these qualities can be traced back to a set of material properties suggest that there is no coherent view on their ontologi-cal status. The author considers current efforts to address this problem, along with the relevance of these attempts to criticism of Turrell's artworks.

The author presents the idea that all human attempts to reproduce natural objects (“exemplars”) or their functions—that is, to build artificial objects or processes—unavoidably result in a transfiguration of the exemplars. After introducing the main concepts of a theory of the artificial, the author extends the theory to communication and the arts, both of which provide compelling examples of the generation of artificial objects or processes. The author conceives of art as a paradoxical communication process by which transfiguration does not represent a failure of the reproduction process but, rather, the true objective of the artist.