Metaphor, Imagery, and Proverbs
Visual and Symbolic Devices in Pieter Bruegel’s Netherlandish Proverbs
Abstract
Proverb imagery, as discussed by Norrick (2007), is rendered in explicit visual form in Pieter Bruegel’s Netherlandish Proverbs (1559), where numerous proverbs are depicted through intricate visual compositions. The present study investigates the function of metaphor within these visual representations. From a cognitivist perspective (Lakoff & Johnson 1980), the analysis emphasizes the visual metaphorical devices (Contini 2012) that characterize the pictorial dimension of these images (Forceville 2009). The investigation highlights the distinctive perceptual immediacy of Bruegel’s proverbial representations which translate conventional linguistic expressions into visually evocative forms, sometimes imbuing them with specific symbolic meanings (Durand 1972).
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References
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Wunenburger, J.-J. (1999). Filosofia delle immagini. Torino: Einaudi.
Yus, F. (2009). Visual metaphor versus verbal metaphor: A unified account. In Forceville C. J. e Urios-Aparisi E. (Eds.), Multimodal metaphor. Berlino: De Gruyter, 147-172. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110215366.3.147.
Dizionari e risorse online:
Manuzio, P. (1585). Adagia quaecumque ad hanc diem exierunt, Paulli Mannuccii studio, atque industria, ... ab omnibus mendis vindicata, quae pium, & veritatis Catholicae studiosum lectorem poterant offendere: sublatis falsis interpretationibus, & nonnullis, ... digressionibus. Cum plurimis, ac locupletissimis indicibus. Venezia: Venetilis. [Versione digitale] https://archive.org/details/ita-bnc-ald-00000268-001/mode/2up.
Refranero Multilingüe, Centro Virtual Cervantes. [versione digitale] https://cvc.cervantes.es/lengua/refranero/Default.aspx.
Stoett, F. A. (1923-1925). Nederlandsche spreekwoorden, spreekwijzen, uitdrukkingen en gezegden, 4ª ed. Zutphen: W.J. Thieme & Cie. [Versione digitale] https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/stoe002nede01_01/stoe002nede01_01_1586.php.
Vocabolario Treccani: https://www.treccani.it/vocabolario/.
Aristotele. Retorica III, 11, 1411b. Trad. it. di C. Viano (2021). Roma-Bari: Laterza.
Bachelard, G. (1975). La poetica dello spazio. Bari: Dedalo.
Bachtin, M. M. (1986). K metodologii gumanitarnyh nauk [About the methodology of humanities]. In M. M. Bachtin, Jestetika slovesnogo tvorchestva [Aesthetics of verbal creativity] (381-393). Iskusstvo. (Citato in Petrenko e Korotchenko, 2012).
Black, M. (1979). More about metaphor. In Ortony A. (Ed.), Metaphor and thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 19-43.
Carston, R. (2010). Metaphor: Ad hoc concepts, literal meaning and mental images. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 110(3), 295-321. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9264.2010.00288.x.
Carston, R. (2018). Figurative language, mental imagery and prag-matics. Metaphor and Symbol. 33, 198-217. https://doi.org/10.1080/10926488.2018.1481257.
Cavazzana, A. e Bolognesi, M. (2020). Uncanny resemblance. Words, pictures, and conceptual representations in the field of metaphor. Co-gnitive Linguistic Studies, 7(1), 31-57. https://doi.org/10.1075/cogls.00048.cav.
Contini, A. (2012). Metafore visive. In Cardarello R. E. e Contini A. (Eds.), Parole immagini metafore. Per una didattica della comprensio-ne. Parma: Spaggiari, 193-220.
Contini, A. (2020). Black e Ricœur filosofi della metafora. Aisthema International Journal, 7, 117-151.
Davidson, D. (2001). What metaphors mean. In Davidson D. (Ed.), Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation. Oxford: Oxford Univer-sity Press, 245-264. https://doi.org/10.1093/0199246297.001.0001.
Durand, G. (1972) [1963]. Le strutture antropologiche dell’immaginario. Introduzione all’archetipologia generale. Bari: Deda-lo.
El Refaie, E. (2015). Cross-modal resonances in creative multimodal metaphors: Breaking out of conceptual prisons. In Pinar Sanz M. J. (Ed.), Multimodality and Cognitive Linguistics. Amsterdam: John Ben-jamins, 13-26. https://doi.org/10.1075/bct.78.01pin.
Forceville, C. J. (1996). Pictorial Metaphor in Advertising. Londra/New York: Routledge.
Forceville, C. J. (2008). Metaphors in pictures and multimodal repre-sentations. In Gibbs R. W. (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of meta-phor and thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 462-482. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511816802.
Forceville, C. J. (2009). Non-verbal and multimodal metaphor in a cognitivist framework: Agendas for research. In Forceville C. J. e Urios-Aparisi E. (Eds.), Multimodal Metaphor. Berlino: De Gruyter, 19-42. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110215366.
Guerrieri, A. (2025). Metafore artistiche. Come si vedono e cosa rac-contano. Milano: Meltemi.
Guerrieri, A., Ervas, F. e Gola, E. (2023). Multimodal artistic me-taphors: Research on a corpus of Sardinian art. Front. Psychol. 14:1146639, 1-12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1146639.
Hart, C. e Marmol Queralto, J. (2021). What can cognitive linguistics tell us about language-image relations? A multidimensional approach to intersemiotic convergence in multimodal texts. Cognitive Linguis-tics, 32(4), 529-562. https://doi.org/10.1515/cog-2021-0039.
Honeck, R. (1997). A Proverb in Mind. The Cognitive Science of Pro-verbial Wit and Wisdom. Londra: Lawrence.
Kleiber, G. (2017). La figure d’un proverbe n’est pas toujours celle d’une métaphore. Scolia, 31, 26-53. https://doi.org/10.4000/scolia.400.
Kövecses, Z. (2020). Extended Conceptual Metaphor Theory. Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lakoff, G. (1987). Women, fire, and dangerous things: What catego-ries reveal about the mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lakoff, G. e Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago: Uni-versity of Chicago Press.
Landi, G. (1871). Le favole di Esopo Frigio. Milano: Giocondo Messag-gi Editore.
Martinengo, A. (2016). Filosofie della metafora. Milano: Guerini Scien-tifica.
Norrick, N. R. (2007). Proverbs as set phrases. In Burger H. et al. (Eds.), Phraseology: An international handbook of contemporary re-search. Berlino: De Gruyter, 381-393.
Petrenko, V. F., e Korotchenko, E. A. (2012). Metaphor as a basic mechanism of art (painting). Psychology in Russia: State of the Art, 5, 531-567. https://doi.org/10.11621/pir.2012.0033.
Potebnya, A. A. (1990). Teoreticheskaja pojetika [Theoretical poet-ics]. Vysshaja shkola. (Citato in Petrenko e Korotchenko, 2012).
Ricœur, P. (1975). La métaphore vive. Parigi: Seuil.
Ricœur, P. (2015) [1978]. Il processo metaforico come apprendimen-to, immaginazione e sentimento. Trad. it. di Marco Carassai. Lo Sguardo, 17, 93-108.
Sevilla Muñoz, J., e Almela Pérez, R. (2000). Paremiología contrasti-va: Propuesta de análisis lingüístico. Revista de Investigación Lingüís-tica, 1, 7-47.
Sevilla Muñoz, J., e Crida Álvarez, C. A. (2013). Las paremias y su clasificación. Paremia, 22, 105-114.
Sevilla Muñoz, J., e Crida Álvarez, C. A. (2015). La problemática ter-minológica en los estudios paremiológicos. Anuari de Filologia. Estu-dis de Lingüística, 5, 67-77.
Sullivan, M. A. (2015). Bruegel’s proverb painting: Renaissance art for a humanist audience. In Mieder W. (Ed.), Wise words. Essays on the proverb. New York: Routledge, 253-295.
Tosi, R. (2014). Favola e proverbio nella cultura classica: Alcune os-servazioni. In Mordeglia C. (Ed.), Lupus in fabula. Fedro e la favola la-tina tra antichità e Medioevo. Bologna: Pàtron, 35-47.
Wunenburger, J.-J. (1999). Filosofia delle immagini. Torino: Einaudi.
Yus, F. (2009). Visual metaphor versus verbal metaphor: A unified account. In Forceville C. J. e Urios-Aparisi E. (Eds.), Multimodal metaphor. Berlino: De Gruyter, 147-172. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110215366.3.147.
Dizionari e risorse online:
Manuzio, P. (1585). Adagia quaecumque ad hanc diem exierunt, Paulli Mannuccii studio, atque industria, ... ab omnibus mendis vindicata, quae pium, & veritatis Catholicae studiosum lectorem poterant offendere: sublatis falsis interpretationibus, & nonnullis, ... digressionibus. Cum plurimis, ac locupletissimis indicibus. Venezia: Venetilis. [Versione digitale] https://archive.org/details/ita-bnc-ald-00000268-001/mode/2up.
Refranero Multilingüe, Centro Virtual Cervantes. [versione digitale] https://cvc.cervantes.es/lengua/refranero/Default.aspx.
Stoett, F. A. (1923-1925). Nederlandsche spreekwoorden, spreekwijzen, uitdrukkingen en gezegden, 4ª ed. Zutphen: W.J. Thieme & Cie. [Versione digitale] https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/stoe002nede01_01/stoe002nede01_01_1586.php.
Vocabolario Treccani: https://www.treccani.it/vocabolario/.
Published
2026-09-13
How to Cite
Mazza, G. (2026). Metaphor, Imagery, and Proverbs. Critical Hermeneutics, 10(1), 29-54. https://doi.org/10.13125/CH/6958
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Articles
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