Call for papers Vol. 10, n. 1, June 2026

2025-06-09

The Identity of Metaphors in Art: Interpretative Challenges

Guest Editors: Alice Guerrieri, Maria Sanz Taus

Deadline (full paper): 28 February 2026

 

Human thought needs metaphors to be expressed. As is well known, metaphor represents a mechanism of thought, a cognitive process that highlights the juxtaposition of conceptual domains from different spheres of belonging, usually a concrete source domain and a more abstract target domain.

Metaphorical language enriches the interlocutor’s knowledge, especially when it ‘puts things in front of the eyes’ all its expressive vividness. Metaphor has an imaging function; it stimulates the interpreter’s imagination while posing a cognitive challenge that can lead to effort in interpreting the most suitable meaning.

During the process of understanding a metaphor (verbal or visual), the interpreter can activate mental images and engage in a creative viewing experience.

The field of observation for metaphors is vast, spanning many areas of contemporary life: from marketing to journalism to politics, from scientific dissemination to health communication. Its strategic function is such that it can be constructed to change the perspective of interpreters.

If there is one field where metaphor represents a true challenge for scholars, it is that of Art, among whose forms of creative expression we find painting, sculpture, photography, cinema, dance, and music.

In a pictorial representation, we can observe, for instance, an artistic metaphor that may be difficult to classify through a classification system of specific categories (unlike the metaphor of an advertising background). Or, an artistic metaphor may be composed of the co-existence of divergent domains that are not easily distinguishable; and correctly identifying which is the source domain and which is the target domain is a challenge, since the artistic metaphor takes on an unusual directionality. Then there are artistic images that challenge the interpreters; the layering of mostly hidden meanings ‘ignites’ the creativity of the observers and stimulates their senses, ‘forcing’ them into meditative reflection to be carried out over a longer contemplation time (unlike a metaphor promoting an advertising product).

The investigation is open to all metaphors that extend into mono-modal and multi-modal, analog and digital, physical and virtual narratives in order to explore: linguistic potential, artistic expressiveness (forms, colours, and symbolisms), intercultural specificities, social utility, and beneficial constructs.

It is necessary for the artistic metaphor to consolidate its identity and strengthen its imaginative nature to contribute to the construction of an aesthetically better and internally richer society.

 

References

Aristotle, Poetics, IV century BC.

Carroll N., Visual Metaphor, in J. Hintikka (edited by), Aspects of Metaphor, Synthese Library, volume 238, Springer, Dordrecht 1994, pp. 189-218.

Carston R., Figurative Language, Mental Imagery and Pragmatics, «Metaphor and Symbol», volume 33, issue 3, 2018, pp. 198-217.

Forceville C., Non-verbal and multimodal metaphor in a cogni­tivist framework: Agendas for research, in G. Kristian­sen, M. Achard, R. Dirven and F. J. Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez (edited by), Cognitive Linguistics, De Gruyter Mouton Berlin, New York 2006.

Gombrich E., Meditations on a hobby horse, and other essays on the theory of art, Phaidon Press, London 1963.

Guerrieri A., Ervas F. and Gola E., Multimodal artistic metaphors: Research on a cor­pus of Sardinian art, «Frontiers Psychology», Sec. Psychology of Language, Volume 14, 2023, pp. 1-12.

Ortony A., Why Metaphors Are Necessary and Not Just Nice, «Educational Theory», volume 25, issue 1, 1975, pp. 45-53.

Nanay B., Aesthetics as philosophy of perception, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2016.

Ricoeur P., The Metaphorical Process as Cognition, Imagination, and Feeling, «Critical Inquiry», volume 5, no. 1, 1978, pp. 143-159.

Šorm E., Steen G. J., VISMIP Towards a method for visual metaphor identification, in G. J. Steen (edited by), Visual Me­taphor. Structure and process, John Benjamins Publi­shing Company, Amsterdam, 2018, pp. 47-88.

Steen G. J., The paradox of metaphor: Why we need a three dimensional model for metaphor, «Metaphor and Symbol», volume 23, issue 4, 2008, pp. 213-241.

Steen G. J., Deliberate metaphor theory: basic assumptions, main tenets, urgent issues, «Intercultural Pragmatics», 14/1, 2017, pp. 1-24.

Wilson D., Carston R., Metaphor and the “emergent property” problem: A relevance-theoretic Treatment, «The Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication», volume 3, 2008, pp. 1-40.

Wollheim R., Lecture VI Painting, Metaphor, And The Body: Titian, Bellini, De Kooning, Etc., in Painting as an Art. The A.W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, Bollingen series XXXV.33, Princeton University Press, Prince­ton 1984, pp. 305-357.

 

Language: Italian, French, Spanish, German, Portuguese, or English (British or American standard; not the mixture of both).

 

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