Simulacrum, from the
Latin simulacrum which means "likeness, similarity",
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'oeil,
Pop Art,
Italian neorealism and the
French New Wave.