The word graphism is not defined in any dictionary, but it refers to the "expression of thought in material symbols". http://www.stanford.edu/class/history34q/readings/Leroi-Gourhan/Leroi-Gourhan_ch6.html Stanford University webpage Graphism began some 30,000 years BC, not as a photographic representation of reality but as an abstraction that was geared toward magical-religious matters.