Why are we still Painting?

[Caesar]

Dear Gary and mates, Your stimulus is quite interesting and poses an absolutely meaningful point indeed.
I wouldn't discard the word painting though, as a general category comprising also a virtual kind of visual composition, insofar it's a somehow artisanal and unique production. The only problem is rather if we should separate what exist in one piece only (as for the handmade, physycal, visual art) or can be reproduced several times or without any limit by printing or storage in memories etc.
For Latin and Italian language pictura or pittura, respectively, is a no issue, since it fundamentally means you represent an image by means of shapes, lines, colors etc. on a surface (2D), usually flat, but not necessarily so. The corresponding english word picture got a quite different meaning and refers mostly to photography. The term imago or immagine (Latin and Italian) is a category comprising the former one, since it's a visual object, image in English, which says nothing about how it's produced. Finally what is common to any visual art as a fundamental pillar, including photography and photomanipulation in case, is composizione, from Latin cum ponere, put together, composition in English, apart from other features making them define as art. This is the mind creating and ordering activity which generally forego, captures and/or drive along the execution any technique to rendering tones, textures, colors, patterns etc. It's very much connected to a style, a recognizble signature to I think, to a personal identity somehow, to uniqueness.
So we may say that dipingere, different from pitturare would be still valid in Italian (incidentally not a secondary language for art and visual arts or architecture), but English lack the term as a specific one, unless to depicture exist,since it referers to an artistic activity and not to a wall refreshing by painting for instance, the prefix de says all, in Latin it means a movement downward from an higher place (even sky or Olympus). As a matter of fact whatever the tool is and the technique, the term applied and applies since ever to any new ways to fix on a surface shapes, colors, tones, texture etc. affresco, encausto, olio, acquerello, tempera etc. (fresco, encausto, oil, watercolor, gouache etc.) are only more specific and not all of them generated a specific verb in Italian.
Just to be complete, the pertinent terminology disegno (drawing more or less), from Latin de + signum (sign) encompasses the graphical category only, the composition structure or an image creation where traits, lines, filled tonal areas are the main issue and colors are not necessary, just an additional option. Once again the de somehow talks of a creative act as a start.
Another intriguing term is visualizzare (visualize), i.e. see inside our mind the idea or make it visible to other people, very much about what visual art is about, i.e. to make us see, to turn visibile (visible), i.e. better observable, intelligible, and possibly enjoyable by our sight and mind an image, an idea etc. including it's emotional content in case.
Having said all the above, before a proper term for dipingere virtualmente/ digitalmente, i.e virtually or digitally painting or better picturing (if it ever exist in this sense) may be found, we should decide if photography, photocomposition/ manipulation, collage etc. is part of the game or not (not in my view) and if the eventual English word should possibly derive from a Ancient Greek, Latin or Italian etymology as a base, considering it an historical evolution. Take into consideration that the terms photography (i.e. drawing with light from ancient Greek) as well as picture comes from such roots. the same applies to creation, fantasy, image, composition and so on. The word pixel too is probably a contraction of picture+element, so I'm practically using in this sentence and in this comment, especially in what sound as an educated terminology, mostly ancient languages words (probabilis, contrahere/ contractio, sententia etc.) which tend to give a clue and a cue of what that word is about.
as an element to explain one of Your question, dear Gary, keep also in mind that photography as well as computer images making didn't start as an art, nor the Cugnot first steam-car or the Ford T making (automotive?) did.
Personally I may easily find definitions in Italian in case, such as videografica (existing), in my opinion too much leaning toward the line and traits structure, or vipingere, vidipingere or vicreare (not existing) or even digidipingere, where prefix vi may stand for either video and/or virtual and many more combinations in case, but I doubt I could enforce any of them by my personal authoritativeness. LOL I may try to turn into English my proposal if You wish, but I have no title to ...
Finally I think that photography, photocomposition/ manipulation, collage etc. are not comprised in dipingere or dipinto (to paint/ painting less precilely though), but may well be part of visual art (so the same should apply if they come from a PC, laptop etc.) and exclusively or preponderantly automatic images creations with no or negligible "manual" (in broader sense) intervention of the artist, no happy accident or uniqueness, is not art in strict sense I think, because its etimology from Latin and even, more remotely from Sanskit, referred to adaption, manufacturing, production where the act of making, a practical manual/ physical skill was then required, mostly or predominantly.
Now I apologize for all this crazy etimological and phylological hodgepodge, I shut up and follow with great interest what will eventually come out as a word in English in case by any native English speaker mate (thus entitled to generate the word) in here.