In addition to @kewms’s suggestions directly above about linked images, @amberv’s suggestions about about splitting the big document into smaller files are still applicable.
Scrivener is designed to be that way to facilitate the writing process. It is a design basis of Scrivener.
When time to get a sense of what the final document will look like, use Scrivenings View with “Draft” picked in the Binder to get a very quick view of the entire document even if split into smaller files. Or, even better, do a quick compile to, say, PDF and use macOS Preview App to look and and/or print for reading.
I sometimes put figures into their own files but “in-place” in the binder using via links to the files stored in the Research section, without any surrounding text except a figure caption. For me, it facilitates moving the figures around in the draft and helps keep the “figure bloat” when I’m focusing on writing text.