Contrary to picture description and picture interpretation, here picture analysis stands in the focus of attention. Message and meaning of aesthetic single pictures are based in their respective formal structure. Four different categories are tested on more than 40 paintings, photographs and advertising pictures: the composition line, the fragment, the symbol, and the reference. With picture analysis taken as a product analysis based on methods, one aspect of modern transdisciplinary "picture science" is dealt with which does not seem to have found sufficient attention yet.