An image is a visual representation. An image can be two-dimensional , such as a drawing , painting , or photograph , or three-dimensional , such as a carving or sculpture . Images may be displayed through other media, including a projection on a surface, activation of electronic signals, or digital displays ; they can also be reproduced through mechanical means, such as photography , printmaking , or photocopying . Images can also be animated through digital or physical processes.
52-397: A petroglyph is an image created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, or abrading , as a form of rock art . Outside North America , scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions of the technique to refer to such images. Petroglyphs, estimated to be 20,000 years old are classified as protected monuments and have been added to
104-514: A petrograph (or pictograph ) is a rock painting. In common usage, the words are sometimes used interchangeably. Both types of image belong to the wider and more general category of rock art or parietal art . Petroforms , or patterns and shapes made by many large rocks and boulders over the ground, are also quite different. Inuksuit are not petroglyphs, but human-made rock forms found in Arctic regions. Petroglyphs have been found in all parts of
156-463: A graph or function or an imaginary entity. For a mental image to be understood outside of an individual's mind, however, there must be a way of conveying that mental image through the words or visual productions of the subject. The broader sense of the word 'image' also encompasses any two-dimensional figure, such as a map , graph , pie chart , painting , or banner . In this wider sense, images can also be rendered manually, such as by drawing ,
208-476: A "cult" value as an example of artistic beauty. Following years of various reproductions of the painting, the portrait's "cult" status has little to do with its original subject or the artistry. It has become famous for being famous, while at the same time, its recognizability has made it a subject to be copied, manipulated, satirized, or otherwise altered in forms ranging from Marcel Duchamp's L.H.O.O.Q . to Andy Warhol 's multiple silk-screened reproductions of
260-436: A (usually) male viewer. The documentary film scholar Bill Nichols has also studied how apparently "objective" photographs and films still encode assumptions about their subjects. Images perpetuated in public education, media, and popular culture have a profound impact on the formation of such mental images: What makes them so powerful is that they circumvent the faculties of the conscious mind but, instead, directly target
312-465: A 3-dimensional object with less effort; the advent and development of " 3-D printing " has expanded that capability. "Moving" two-dimensional images are actually illusions of movement perceived when still images are displayed in sequence, each image lasting less, and sometimes much less, than a fraction of a second. The traditional standard for the display of individual frames by a motion picture projector has been 24 frames per second (FPS) since at least
364-455: A form of record-keeping; as an element of spiritual, religious, or magical practice; or even as a form of communication. Early writing systems , including hieroglyphics , ideographic writing, and even the Roman alphabet , owe their origins in some respects to pictorial representations. Images of any type may convey different meanings and sensations for individual viewers, regardless of whether
416-689: A landform or the surrounding terrain, such as rivers and other geographic features. Some petroglyph maps, depicting trails, as well as containing symbols communicating the time and distances travelled along those trails, exist; other petroglyph maps act as astronomical markers. As well as holding geographic and astronomical importance, other petroglyphs may also have been a by-product of various rituals: sites in India, for example, have seen some petroglyphs identified as musical instruments or " rock gongs ". Some petroglyphs likely formed types of symbolic communication, such as types of proto-writing . Later glyphs from
468-466: A local topographer, antiquarian and naturalist. His major work was a history of his native town, Alnwick . He was son of Ralph Tate, a builder, and the brother of Thomas Tate , the mathematician and chemist. His life was passed in Alnwick, of which he was a freeman by right of birth. There, in his earlier years, he carried on the business of a linendraper. In 1848 he was appointed postmaster, and held
520-625: A part of John Collingwood Bruce 's The Roman Wall (2nd edit. 1853). His account of the fossil flora of Berwickshire, North Durham, and the adjacent parts of Northumberland and Roxburghshire was incorporated in George Johnston 's work, The Natural History of the Eastern Borders , 1854; and that of the geology of Northumberland in John Gilbert Baker and George Ralph Tate's New Flora of Northumberland and Durham . He
572-401: A physiological effect of light impressions remaining on the retina of the eye for very brief periods. Even though the term is still sometimes used in popular discussions of movies, it is not a scientifically valid explanation. Other terms emphasize the complex cognitive operations of the brain and the human visual system. " Flicker fusion ", the " phi phenomenon ", and " beta movement " are among
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#1732772797657624-848: A temporary rock shelter were noticed adjacent to a Murugan temple which is in ruins on top of the Kothaiyurumbu hill. During recent years a large number of rock carvings has been identified in different parts of Iran. The vast majority depict the ibex . Rock drawings were found in December 2016 near Golpayegan , Iran , which may be the oldest drawings discovered, with one cluster possibly 40,000 years old. Accurate estimations were unavailable due to US sanctions. The oldest pictographs in Iran are seen in Yafteh cave in Lorestan that date back 40,000 and
676-402: Is a single static image. This phrase is used in photography, visual media , and the computer industry to emphasize that one is not talking about movies, or in very precise or pedantic technical writing such as a standard . A moving image is typically a movie ( film ) or video , including digital video . It could also be an animated display , such as a zoetrope . A still frame
728-404: Is a still image derived from one frame of a moving one. In contrast, a film still is a photograph taken on the set of a movie or television program during production, used for promotional purposes. In image processing , a picture function is a mathematical representation of a two-dimensional image as a function of two spatial variables . The function f(x,y) describes the intensity of
780-768: Is harder to explain the common styles. This could be mere coincidence, an indication that certain groups of people migrated widely from some initial common area, or indication of a common origin. In 1853, George Tate presented a paper to the Berwick Naturalists' Club, at which a John Collingwood Bruce agreed that the carvings had "... a common origin, and indicate a symbolic meaning, representing some popular thought." In his cataloguing of Scottish rock art, Ronald Morris summarized 104 different theories on their interpretation. Other theories suggest that petroglyphs were carved by spiritual leaders, such as shamans , in an altered state of consciousness , perhaps induced by
832-401: Is still an image, even though it does not fully use the visual system's capabilities. On the other hand, some processes can be used to create visual representations of objects that are otherwise inaccessible to the human visual system. These include microscopy for the magnification of minute objects, telescopes that can observe objects at great distances, X-rays that can visually represent
884-649: The Farne Islands , Dunstanburgh Castle , Long Houghton church, and Harbottle Castle , he prepared accounts of the Cheviot Hills , St. Cuthbert's beads , porpoises, the bulk and colour of the hair and eyes of the Northumbrians, the orange-legged hobby , and the common squirrel. Tate's account of his journey along the Roman Roman wall, with his examination of its geology, was published as
936-645: The Nordic Bronze Age in Scandinavia seem to refer to some form of territorial boundary between tribes , in addition to holding possible religious meanings. Petroglyph styles have been recognised as having local or regional "dialects" from similar or neighboring peoples. Siberian inscriptions loosely resemble an early form of runes , although no direct relationship has been established. Petroglyphs from different continents show similarities. While people would be inspired by their direct surroundings, it
988-481: The Age of Mechanical Reproduction." Benjamin argues that the mechanical reproduction of images, which had accelerated through photographic processes in the previous one hundred years or so, inevitably degrades the "authenticity" or quasi-religious "aura" of the original object. One example is Leonardo da Vinci 's Mona Lisa , originally painted as a portrait, but much later, with its display as an art object, it developed
1040-509: The Americas is known as the "Horny Little Man." It is petroglyph depicting a stick figure with an oversized phallus and carved in Lapa do Santo , a cave in central-eastern Brazil and dates from 12,000 to 9,000 years ago. Image In the context of signal processing , an image is a distributed amplitude of color(s). In optics , the term "image" (or "optical image") refers specifically to
1092-513: The Greek philosopher Plato described our apparent reality as a copy of a higher order of universal forms . As copies of a higher reality, the things we perceive in the world, tangible or abstract, are inevitably imperfect. Book 7 of The Republic offers Plato's " Allegory of the Cave ," where ordinary human life is compared to being a prisoner in a darkened cave who believes that shadows projected onto
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#17327727976571144-675: The Witwatersrand studies present-day links between religion and rock art among the San people of the Kalahari Desert . Though the San people's artworks are predominantly paintings, the beliefs behind them can perhaps be used as a basis for understanding other types of rock art, including petroglyphs. To quote from the RARI website: Using knowledge of San beliefs, researchers have shown that
1196-562: The art of painting, or the graphic arts (such as lithography or etching ). Additionally, images can be rendered automatically through printing , computer graphics technology, or a combination of both methods. A two-dimensional image does not need to use the entire visual system to be a visual representation. An example of this is a grayscale ("black and white") image, which uses the visual system's sensitivity to brightness across all wavelengths without taking into account different colors. A black-and-white visual representation of something
1248-684: The art played a fundamental part in the religious lives of its painters. The art captured things from the San's world behind the rock-face: the other world inhabited by spirit creatures, to which dancers could travel in animal form, and where people of ecstasy could draw power and bring it back for healing, rain-making and capturing the game. Tunisia Eight sites in Hong Kong : Kethaiyurumpu, Tamil Nadu. Situated 28 km north west of Dindigal, Tamil Nadu nearby Idaiyakottai and six km south west of Oddanchartam has revealed several petroglyphs mostly represent abstract symbols on two rocks, which looks like
1300-498: The cave's wall comprise actual reality. Since art is itself an imitation, it is a copy of that copy and all the more imperfect. Artistic images, then, not only misdirect human reason away from understanding the higher forms of true reality, but in imitating the bad behaviors of humans in depictions of the gods, they can corrupt individuals and society. Echoes of such criticism have persisted across time, accelerating as image-making technologies have developed and expanded immensely since
1352-399: The commercial introduction of "talking pictures" in the late 1920s, which necessitated a standard for synchronizing images and sounds. Even in electronic formats such as television and digital image displays, the apparent "motion" is actually the result of many individual lines giving the impression of continuous movement. This phenomenon has often been described as " persistence of vision ":
1404-528: The district, and biographies of the notabilities of the town. On the completion of its publication a banquet was given in Tate's honour in the town-hall, 21 May 1869. Tate also published in 1865 Sculptured Rocks of Northumberland and Eastern Borders . He examined ancient British remains, and wrote papers on them for the proceedings of the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club. Besides monographs on
1456-493: The form of idols . In recent years, militant extremist groups such as the Taliban and ISIS have destroyed centuries-old artifacts, especially those associated with other religions. Virtually all cultures have produced images and applied different meanings or applications to them. The loss of knowledge about the context and connection of an image to its object is likely to result in different perceptions and interpretations of
1508-827: The globe except Antarctica , with highest concentrations in parts of Africa, Scandinavia and Siberia, many examples of petroglyphs found globally are dated to approximately the Neolithic and late Upper Paleolithic boundary (roughly 10,000 to 12,000 years ago). Around 7,000 to 9,000 years ago, following the introduction of a number of precursors of writing systems , the existence and creation of petroglyphs began to suffer and tail off, with different forms of art, such as pictographs and ideograms , taking their place. However, petroglyphs continued to be created and remained somewhat common, with various cultures continuing to use them for differing lengths of time, including cultures who continued to create them until contact with Western culture
1560-461: The illusion of depth in an otherwise "flat" image, but "3-D photography" ( stereoscopy ) or " 3-D film " are optical illusions that require special devices such as eyeglasses to create the illusion of depth. Copies of 3-dimensional images have traditionally had to be crafted one at a time, usually by an individual or team of artisans . In the modern age, the development of plastics and other technologies made it possible to create multiple copies of
1612-529: The image and even of the original object itself. Through human history, one dominant form of imagery has been in relation to religion and spirituality. Such images, whether in the form of idols that are objects of worship or that represent some other spiritual state or quality, have a different status as artifacts when copies of such images sever links to the spiritual or supernatural. The German philosopher and essayist Walter Benjamin brought particular attention to this point in his 1935 essay "The Work of Art in
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1664-471: The image's creator intended them. An image may be taken simply as a more or less "accurate" copy of a person, place, thing, or event. It may represent an abstract concept, such as the political power of a ruler or ruling class, a practical or moral lesson, an object for spiritual or religious veneration, or an object—human or otherwise—to be desired. It may also be regarded for its purely aesthetic qualities, rarity, or monetary value. Such reactions can depend on
1716-503: The image. In modern times, the development of " non-fungible tokens " (NFTs) has been touted as an attempt to create "authentic" or "unique" images that have a monetary value, existing only in digital format. This assumption has been widely debated. The development of synthetic acoustic technologies and the creation of sound art have led to considering the possibilities of a sound-image made up of irreducible phonic substance beyond linguistic or musicological analysis. A still image
1768-635: The interior structures of the human body (among other objects), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) , positron emission tomography (PET scans) , and others. Such processes often rely on detecting electromagnetic radiation that occurs beyond the light spectrum visible to the human eye and converting such signals into recognizable images. Aside from sculpture and other physical activities that can create three-dimensional images from solid material, some modern techniques, such as holography , can create three-dimensional images that are reproducible but intangible to human touch. Some photographic processes can now render
1820-405: The invention of the daguerreotype and other photographic processes in the mid-19th century. By the late 20th century, works like John Berger's Ways of Seeing and Susan Sontag 's On Photography questioned the hidden assumptions of power, race, sex, and class encoded in even realistic images, and how those assumptions and such images may implicate the viewer in the voyeuristic position of
1872-694: The making of images, even though the extent of that proscription has varied with time, place, and sect or denomination of a given religion. In Judaism, one of the Ten Commandments given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai forbids the making of "any graven image, or any likeness [of any thing] that [is] in heaven above, or that [is] in the earth beneath, or that [is] in the water under earth." In Christian history, periods of iconoclasm (the destruction of images, especially those with religious meanings or connotations) have broken out from time to time, and some sects and denominations have rejected or severely limited
1924-474: The office till within two weeks of his death. He was active in the public life the town, helping to organise the Alnwick Mechanics' Scientific Institution, of which he acted as secretary for thirty years, and as the secretary of the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club from 1858 until his death. Tate died on 7 June 1871, and was buried on the 9th in Alnwick churchyard, on the south side of the church. He
1976-463: The oldest petroglyph discovered belongs to Timareh dating back to 40,800 years ago. Iran provides demonstrations of script formation from pictogram, ideogram, linear (2300 BC) or proto Elamite, geometric old Elamite script, Pahlevi script, Arabic script (906 years ago), Kufi script, and Farsi script back to at least 250 years ago. More than 50000 petroglyphs have been discovered, extended over all Iran's states. The oldest reliably dated rock art in
2028-523: The philosophy of art. While such studies inevitably deal with issues of meaning, another approach to signification was suggested by the American philosopher, logician, and semiotician Charles Sanders Peirce . "Images" are one type of the broad category of "signs" proposed by Peirce. Although his ideas are complex and have changed over time, the three categories of signs that he distinguished stand out: A single image may exist in all three categories at
2080-402: The point at coordinates (x,y). In literature, a " mental image " may be developed through words and phrases to which the senses respond. It involves picturing an image mentally, also called imagining, hence imagery. It can both be figurative and literal. George Tate (topographer) George Tate (21 May 1805 – 7 June 1871) was an English tradesman from Northumberland , known as
2132-583: The reproduction of an object formed by light waves coming from the object. A volatile image exists or is perceived only for a short period. This may be a reflection of an object by a mirror, a projection of a camera obscura , or a scene displayed on a cathode-ray tube . A fixed image , also called a hard copy , is one that has been recorded on a material object, such as paper or textile . A mental image exists in an individual's mind as something one remembers or imagines. The subject of an image does not need to be real; it may be an abstract concept such as
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2184-471: The same time. The Statue of Liberty provides an example. While there have been countless two-dimensional and three-dimensional "reproductions" of the statue (i.e., "icons" themselves), the statue itself exists as The nature of images, whether three-dimensional or two-dimensional, created for a specific purpose or only for aesthetic pleasure, has continued to provoke questions and even condemnation at different times and places. In his dialogue, The Republic ,
2236-447: The subconscious and affective, thus evading direct inquiry through contemplative reasoning. By doing so such axiomatic images let us know what we shall desire (liberalism, in a snapshot: the crunchy honey-flavored cereals and the freshly-pressed orange juice in the back of a suburban one-family home) and from what we shall obstain (communism, in a snapshot: lifeless crowds of men and machinery marching towards certain perdition accompanied by
2288-509: The tentative list of UNESCO 's World Heritage Sites . Petroglyphs are found worldwide, and are often associated with prehistoric peoples. The word comes from the Greek prefix petro- , from πέτρα petra meaning " stone ", and γλύφω glýphō meaning "carve", and was originally coined in French as pétroglyphe . In scholarly texts, a petroglyph is a rock engraving, whereas
2340-500: The terms that have replaced "persistence of vision", though no one term seems adequate to describe the process. Image-making seems to have been common to virtually all human cultures since at least the Paleolithic era . Prehistoric examples of rock art —including cave paintings , petroglyphs , rock reliefs , and geoglyphs —have been found on every inhabited continent. Many of these images seem to have served various purposes: as
2392-579: The tunes of Soviet Russian songs). What makes those images so powerful is that it is only of relative minor relevance for the stabilization of such images whether they actually capture and correspond with the multiple layers of reality, or not. Despite, or perhaps because of, the widespread use of religious and spiritual imagery worldwide, the making of images and the depiction of gods or religious subjects has been subject to criticism, censorship, and criminal penalties. The Abrahamic religions ( Judaism , Christianity , and Islam ) all have had admonitions against
2444-461: The use of natural hallucinogens . Many of the geometric patterns (known as form constants ) which recur in petroglyphs and cave paintings have been shown by David Lewis-Williams to be hardwired into the human brain. They frequently occur in visual disturbances and hallucinations brought on by drugs, migraine , and other stimuli. The Rock Art Research Institute (RARI) of the University of
2496-512: The use of religious imagery. Islam tends to discourage religious depictions, sometimes quite rigorously, and often extends that to other forms of realistic imagery, favoring calligraphy or geometric designs instead. Depending on time and place, photographs and broadcast images in Islamic societies may be less subject to outright prohibition. In any religion, restrictions on image-making are especially targeted to avoid depictions of "false gods" in
2548-407: The viewer's context. A religious image in a church may be regarded differently than the same image mounted in a museum. Some might view it simply as an object to be bought or sold. Viewers' reactions will also be guided or shaped by their education, class, race, and other contexts. The study of emotional sensations and their relationship to any given image falls into the categories of aesthetics and
2600-577: Was a Fellow of the Geological Society , and honoured by other learned societies. Tate's History of the Borough, Castle, and Barony of Alnwick , which appeared in parts between 1865 and 1869, was his major publication. It included the history of Alnwick Castle and the Percy family, with accounts of old customs, sports, public movements, local nomenclature, the botany, zoology, and geology of
2652-484: Was made in the 19th and 20th centuries. Many hypotheses exist as to the purpose of petroglyphs, depending on their location, age, and subject matter. Some petroglyph images most likely held a deep cultural and religious significance for the societies that created them. Many petroglyphs are thought to represent a type of symbolic or ritualistic language or communication style that remains not fully understood. Others, such as geocontourglyphs , more clearly depict or represent
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#17327727976572704-717: Was the first to record marks of ice action on rocks in Northumberland. Robert Middleman gives a list of Tate's publications in his obituary notice. Tate formed a museum, rich in fossils collected in the course of his investigations in the carboniferous and mountain limestone formations. His name was given to three species by Thomas Rupert Jones : Estheria striata var. Tateana, Candona tateana , and Beyrichia tatei ( Bernix tatei ). Tate married, in 1832, Ann Horsley, also of Alnwick, who died on 21 December 1847. Two sons and three daughters survived him. Attribution [REDACTED] This article incorporates text from
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