represent

represent, depict, portray, delineate, picture, limn can mean to present an image or lifelike imitation of (as in art).

Represent implies a placing before the mind as if real or as if living through the medium of one of the arts (as painting, sculpture, or literature); the term may imply either a presentation of reality or of imagined reality or a treatment of an abstraction or a spiritual being in terms of real things

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the painting represents a spring scene

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the Holy Ghost is represented as a dove in the Pentecostal window

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there are several classic procedures for representing visual images by means of music— Virgil Thomson

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paintings ... to produce a specific aesthetic sensation rather than merely to represent nature— Current Biog.

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Depict, primarily meaning to represent in terms of painting, may stress the implication of graphic, vivid representation more than the form of art employed; it is applied to such arts as literature or drawing which suggest color and detail in some other way than by pigments

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painters are sometimes accused of calling upon their imagination when they are really depicting fact— Jefferies

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a novelist noted especially for his skill in depicting character

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drama may be achieved by action as well as by speech. Action can tell a story . . . and depict every kind of human emotion, without the aid of a word— Justice Holmes

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Portray suggests the making of a detailed representation of individual persons, or of specific characters, emotions, or qualities (as by drawing, engraving, painting, acting, or describing)

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in literature are portrayed all human passions, desires, and aspirations— Eliot

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a star who unquestionably conveyed to audiences the very essence of the character he was portraying —J. F. Wharton

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Delineate (see also SKETCH) basically implies representation by an art (as engraving or drawing) that uses lines to gain its effects, but, like portray, it is often used to stress care for accuracy of detail and fullness of outline

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his brush did its work with a steady and sure stroke that indicated command of his materials. He could delineate whatever he elected with technical skill— Jefferies

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Picture less than any of these terms implies the employment of a particular art; it emphasizes the ability to realize a thing in a pictorial or vivid way and may either imply graphic description

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those villages Mark Twain . . . has pictured for us— Brooks

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or sensible representation in any form

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her emotions are all pictured in her face

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or, sometimes with "to oneself," mere imaginative power

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the girl was in his mind a lot... he had always had a good imagination. He pictured her as she came down the stairs in the morning— Malamud

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they tried, in their sympathetic grief, to picture to themselves all that she had been through in her life— Bennett

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Limn is used chiefly as an equivalent of depict or delineate, often implying the art of painting vividly and with color

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since not every ancestral likeness had been limned by the brush of a maestro, dignity . . . sometimes seemed merely bovine— Warren

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had too much taste to bare all these grubby secret details, but she limned a general picture for him -Stafford

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Analogous words: exhibit, display, *show: *suggest, hint: *sketch, outline, draft, delineate: describe, narrate, *relate