I'm so tempted to google the definition of the word "image," but I refrain. I want to study it. I want to consider all possibilities before beginning to explore its meaning, but I remember one of the purposes of this course, to let things affect you personally and to make your own decisions about art based on your personal experiences.
It isn't one of the artforms that I practice, but my mind instantly goes to comic books when I think of what an image is, specifically Scott McCloud's work, UNDERSTANDING COMICS, which defines images as icons, something that represents something else. We do not see the chair in front of us. We only see the refractions of light around it. Perhaps there is more to it than what we can see?
McCloud further defines an icon by discussing the picture plane. According to McCloud, all images and icons fall somewhere on this picture plane. At one end is the purely symbolic, the letter, the word, the cartoon. On the other end is perfect realism. Finally, the third point on the plane represents the pure abstract, images or icons with meanings we provide for them.
In the case of art in general, what McCloud is not accounting for is actual "real life." While seeing a person may not actually be that person, but a representation of that person, it all that can be seen to human eye. I would, therefore, define an image, for myself, as "that which can be seen either through minification, magnification, or the naked eye."
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