Pic·ture n.
1. The art of painting; representation by painting. [Obs.]
Any well-expressed image . . . either in picture or sculpture. --Sir H. Wotton.
2. A representation of anything (as a person, a landscape, a building) upon canvas, paper, or other surface, produced by means of painting, drawing, engraving, photography, etc.; a representation in colors. By extension, a figure; a model.
Pictures and shapes are but secondary objects. --Bacon.
The young king's picture . . . in virgin wax. --Howell.
3. An image or resemblance; a representation, either to the eye or to the mind; that which, by its likeness, brings vividly to mind some other thing; as, a child is the picture of his father; the man is the picture of grief.
My eyes make pictures when they are shut. --Coleridge.
Note: ☞ Picture is often used adjectively, or in forming self-explaining compounds; as, picture book or picture-book, picture frame or picture-frame, picture seller or picture-seller, etc.
Animated picture, a moving picture.
Picture gallery, a gallery, or large apartment, devoted to the exhibition of pictures.
Picture red, a rod of metal tube fixed to the walls of a room, from which pictures are hung.
Picture writing. (a) The art of recording events, or of expressing messages, by means of pictures representing the actions or circumstances in question. --Tylor. (b) The record or message so represented; as, the picture writing of the American Indians.
Syn: -- Picture, Painting.
Usage: Every kind of representation by drawing or painting is a picture, whether made with oil colors, water colors, pencil, crayons, or India ink; strictly, a painting is a picture made by means of colored paints, usually applied moist with a brush.
picture writing
n : a writing system using pictographs