The increasing complexity of contemporary visual media often strains existing terminology to a point where it starts losing its usefulness in assisting understanding. The article seeks to clarify the meaning of the terms “virtual” and “abstract” by discussing them in relation to “pictorial”, which is a more stable term. By differentiating their various meanings and interconnections, it proposes a consistent terminology with which to address a broad range of visual phenomena and the fine distinctions between them. According to these proposed definitions, the term “pictorial” describes the key attribute of physical objects through which an inexistent visible space can be seen, “virtual” describes the nature of the visual space that is created by pictorial images, and “abstract” has different meanings depending on which aspect of an image is being discussed. It can refer to the image’s ability to generate a visual space, the possible content of such a space or the concreteness of the image as a physical object.
