Aesthetic preferences of contemporary art connoisseurs can hardly be called uniform. In view of this, today, heterogeneity, designed for a wide audience, is increasingly becoming a common technique. However, a question arises as to the reasons for the popularity of such eclecticism and ambiguity in the formation of an artistic image. The article is an attempt to scientific understanding of the formation and development of perception of images that differ in containing two or more strongly pronounced equivalent origins, which may exist with each other in contrast or be antagonistic. A specific character of understanding the meaning of heterogeneous images is rooted in the biological characteristics of human thinking and is directly dependent on the process of perception. The complexity of the polymorphic image lies in the impossibility of its unambiguous perception and identification. The aesthetic conflict is caused by the impossibility of correlating the image obtained in the process of perception with the norm, as well as the difficulty of checking the information presented in practice. This is a fair pattern: as perception influenced culture, so did culture affect perception. The nature of heterogeneity is explained by getting deep into the features of a primitive man’s worldview and is expressed in myth-making, which, by virtue of a certain instinct, creates a pure image. The images formed at the early stages develop on the border of the antagonistic categories of the sublime and the base, the beautiful and the ugly, which makes them extremely contradictory. However, they exist in consciousness as long as these discrepancies are noticed by a man, but are perceived naturally. Subsequently, heterogeneity begins to acquire a comic character, is used as an allegory, and through the use of the method of deformation becomes a powerful spokesman for the human essence. Modern perception of heterogeneity can be represented in two manifestations. On the one hand, a tendency has developed to harmoniously merge the heterogeneous into a single system. A clear definition of the boundaries of the elements made it possible later on to come to the collage art, able to synthesize even the most contradictory things. On the other hand, the fragmentation of an already holistic image was used in order to give it heterogeneity. These transformations have found the most vivid embodiment in painting, literature, cinematographic art. The creation of a heterogeneous image in contemporary art allows us to trace the change in the perception by society of the phenomenon of hybridity, its mood to accept such changes and openness to heterogeneity. Indeed, for the modern viewer, the aestheticization of heterogeneity becomes quite expected, is not filled with satire, loses ugliness. It gives hope for the attainment of happiness and power, which forms the basis for the increasing popularity of polymorphic images.
