The artistic image - general category of art, a form of interpretation and perception of the world from the perspective of a particular aesthetic ideal by creating aesthetically impacting objects. Artistic way as any phenomenon is called, creatively re-created in an artistic work. The artistic image - an image of art that is created by the author of a work of art in order to more fully reveal the phenomenon described reality.

The artistic image is dialectical: it combines live contemplation, his subjective interpretation and evaluation of the author (as well as performer, listener, reader, viewer).

The artistic image is created on the basis of one of: image, sound, language environment - or a combination of several. It is an integral part of the material substratum of art. For example, the meaning, the internal structure, the clarity of the musical image is largely determined by the natural matter of music - acoustic qualities of musical sound. In literature and poetry, an artistic image is created on the basis of a specific language environment, in the theatrical arts are used all three tools.

At the same time, the sense of the artistic image is revealed only in a particular communicative situation and the end result of such communication depends on the personality, goals, and even momentary mood confronted with a person, as well as the specific culture to which he belongs. So often after one or two centuries since the creation of works of art it is perceived quite differently, as perceived by his contemporaries and even the author himself.

In "Poetics" of Aristotle, the image appears as a trope inaccurate exaggerated, understated, or modified, the refracted reflection of the original nature. In the aesthetics of romanticism similarity and resemblance are giving way to creative, subjective, transfiguring the beginning. In this sense, the peerless, anyone not like, then fine. This is also the understanding of the way in the aesthetics of the avant-garde, preferring to hyperbole, the shift. In the aesthetics of surrealism, "a reality, multiplied by seven, - the truth." In recent poetry has appeared the concept of "metametafora". This is an image prohibitive reality beyond the threshold of light speed, where science stops and starts to talk art. It is about expanding the limits of human hearing and vision far beyond the physical and psychological barriers.