Art is a special form of "thinking in images" with symbolic value, of "imaginative representations" framed in a message, concept, idea (semiotic function). Through its multiple aspects - aesthetic, psychological, philosophical, etc., art and plastic image have always created dilemmas and controversies - creative processes in which human thinking is actively involved in all its forms: thinking in images (imaginative-representative), synthetic thinking and analytical, associative thinking (with a special role and status), based much on associative perception. Perception, the superior form of sensory knowledge, includes cognitive and sensory psychic processes, through which the properties of objects and phenomena in the external and internal environment of human are reflected and interpreted. The human intellect translates the objects of the external world into mental forms (objects), the mode of perception being largely dependent on mental predisposition, previous experiences and the psychological load they acquire over time. The ability to build associations is the most important skill of the human brain. The appearance of an element, under certain conditions, in the case of associative perception and associative thinking, evokes the image of another, associated with it. The basis of artistic creativity is the thinking based on associations. Associative thinking, unilaterally dependent on associative perception, imagination and fantasy, is that type of thinking, formed by creating special associative links and connections between objects and phenomena of the surrounding world, stored in the memory of the person from their own life experiences, from the earliest childhood . Associative thinking in art and painting, through its specific properties, gives the opportunity to create something new, to generate new ideas and concepts, leads to non-trivial approaches and non-standard visions, allows obtaining a compositional completeness and more efficient resolutions of the pictorial solution.