 Michael Newall has recently defended the theory that “pictures occasion non-veridical seeing of their subject-matter” (Newall 2011: 42), which can be interpreted as an endorsement of Descartes’s position. But it is generally thought that Descartes assimilates pictures in general to trompes l’oeil, whose purpose is (or is commonly thought to be) to cause spectators to experience a kind of illusion. The experiential theories philosophers advocate today tend to define the experience caused by pictures differently, for this reason. (Newall distinguishes between his own theory and the theory that pictorial experience is a kind of illusion in Newall 2011: 23–30.)