The Power of Pictures

I find Schwartz' argument for the importance of pictures in shaping our world reasonable. I am however curious how he would evaluate abstract art or even art that does not aim to be realistic in a picture like sense. Clearly these images also have influence on our perception of the world but perhaps in a slightly different manner than his Stein example. He defines one Stein image to be better than another when it "provides more insight into Stein's characteristics and helps capture more forcefully what is significantly distinctive about her looks." p173 Where does abstract art fall into this definition if the subject of the image and its characteristics are not so concrete?