Depiction is meaning conveyed through pictures. Basically, a picture maps an object to a two-dimensional scheme or picture plane. Pictures are made with various materials and techniques, such as painting, drawing, or prints including photography and movies mosaics, tapestries, stained glass, and collages of unusual and disparate elements. Occasionally pictures may occur in simply inkblots, accidental stains, peculiar clouds or a glimpse of the moon, but these are special cases. Sculpture and performances are sometimes said to depict but this arises where depiction is taken to include all reference that is not linguistic or notational. The bulk of research in depiction however deals only in pictures. While sculpture and performance clearly represent or refer, they do not strictly picture their objects.

via Depiction – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.