French secondary school curricula encourage linking the analysis of paintings with an analytical reading of literary texts. However, the semiological specificities of the two arts allow one to think that knowledge transferred from one to the other is obvious. This paper will show that Schaeffer’s description of aesthetic experience could help teachers understand what is expected from students. Indeed, students’ analysis of paintings confirms that they can manage to express an aesthetic experience more than in their analysis of literary texts. This confirms the validity of linking an analysis of paintings with literary texts and allows us to consider that Schaeffer’s categories could assist teachers develop methods to help their students transfer knowledge from one to the other.