A
simulacrum (
plural:
simulacra from , which means "likeness, similarity"), is a representation or imitation of a person or thing. The word was first recorded in the English language in the late 16th century, used to describe a representation, such as a statue or a painting, especially of a god. By the late 19th century, it had gathered a secondary association of inferiority: an image without the substance or qualities of the original. Philosopher
Fredric Jameson offers
photorealism as an example of artistic simulacrum, where a painting is sometimes created by copying a photograph that is itself a copy of the real. Other art forms that play with simulacra include
trompe-l'œil,
pop art,
Italian neorealism, and
French New Wave.