Virtual Image and Its Compliance with the Created Material Artefacts

The purpose of the article is to study the concept of a virtual image created in the artist’s imagination and its correspondence to the material invariant. The research methodology based on a system approach to the analysis of the virtual dimension of art. The analytical method is applied to the study of philosophical, art, history and cultural literature for a topic. The theoretical and conceptual method is to characterise the research vocabulary; the comparative-typological method is to find out the correspondence of the virtual image, which is formed in the imagination of a person, with the recovered material artefacts. The article covers Plato’s concept “on the specifics of creating images and simulacra”, Thomas Aquinas’ regulation “on the category of virtuality” and Serhii Bezklubenko’s (2015) concept of “psychological ultrastructure of art”. The scientific novelty of the study is to research the differences between the virtual image and its material invariant, using the examples of the works of Ludwig van Beethoven, Leonardo da Vinci, and Rembrandt van Rijn. Conclusions. We have proven that the art piece making begins with the formation of a virtual image (concept statement) in the imagination of the creator and ends with the materialised form of the original plan. The art piece making is a complex psychological ultrastructure of art starting from the time when its image is born in the artist’s imagination to its embodiment (materialisation) into a certain product, and then the search for its completion in the minds of consumers. Using the examples of well-known artworks, we have learnt that the end image often is out of keeping the original virtual concept