It may be that highly realistic or naturalistic figurative art is almost like a useless "fetish" object, in that the artificial object is preferred over the actual subject or live model that may indeed be available to the viewer, and just as beautiful. Why for example have real sex with the panties, when you can have real sex with the ladies who wear them, and in the very presence of the panties. The map after all is not the land, even if the map might be a lofty holographic reality. The least value of the art and the sign and the map and the panties of course occurs when the object or subject or model is forever absent from the viewer. -FCK
Armando partly wrote in effect... If recognizable naturalism in art is as close to what one expects realism to be, it is not something unexpected, therefore it is more likely to satisfy than stimulate the brain. It is like seeing a horse as a horse instead of a blue horse, for example.
