Startseite Sic vita est: Visual representation in painting of the conceptual metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY
Artikel
Lizenziert
Nicht lizenziert Erfordert eine Authentifizierung

Sic vita est: Visual representation in painting of the conceptual metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY

  • Fabio Poppi ORCID logo EMAIL logo und Peter Kravanja
Veröffentlicht/Copyright: 20. August 2019

Abstract

This article analyzes how the conceptualization LIFE IS A JOURNEY is conveyed within a series of paintings ranging from the fifteenth century to the twentieth century. While the previous research on visual metaphor generally aims to describe how the domains of metaphorical conceptualization interact or discusses the rhetorical effect that visual metaphor is able to induce, this article takes a historical perspective in order to identify the main conceptual aspects shared by the paintings under consideration. It is proposed that the concept of a JOURNEY is associated with a PURPOSIVE ACTIVITY that involves the start of the journey and its termination as two qualitatively different moments that are faced as a collective/shared experience and that are inspired by some human wish. This article also shows how the conceptual potential of metaphor tends to maintain a coherent representation although the paintings represent different historical sensitivities and artistic approaches.

References

Alhadeff, A. 2002. The raft of the Medusa: Géricault, art, and race. Munich: Prestel.Suche in Google Scholar

Arnheim, R. 1983. The power of the center: A study of composition in the visual arts. Oakland: University of California Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Black, M. 1954. Metaphor. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 55. 273–294.10.1093/aristotelian/55.1.273Suche in Google Scholar

Black, M. 1979. More about metaphor. In A. Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and thought, 19–43. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781139173865.004Suche in Google Scholar

Blumenthal, Arthur R. 2001. Cosimo Rosselli painter of the Sistine Chapel. Winter Park: Cornell Fine Arts Museum.Suche in Google Scholar

Bounegru, L. & C. Forceville. 2011. Metaphors in editorial cartoons representing the global financial crisis. Visual Communication 10(2). 209–229.10.1177/1470357211398446Suche in Google Scholar

Cameron, L. & R. Maslen. 2010. Metaphor analysis: Research practice in applied linguistics, social sciences, and the humanities. Sheffield: Equinox.Suche in Google Scholar

Casasanto, D. 2009. Embodiment of abstract concepts: Good and bad in right-and left-handers. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 138. 351–367.10.1037/a0015854Suche in Google Scholar

Charteris-Black, J. 2012. Forensic deliberations on “purposeful metaphor”. Metaphor and the Social World 2(1). 1–21.10.1075/msw.2.1.01chaSuche in Google Scholar

Cienki, A. & C. Müller (eds.). 2008. Metaphor and gesture. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/gs.3Suche in Google Scholar

Coëgnarts, M. & P. Kravanja. 2012. Embodied visual meaning: Image schemas in film. Projections 6(2). 84–101.10.3167/proj.2012.060206Suche in Google Scholar

El Refaie, E. 2003. Understanding visual metaphor: The example of newspaper cartoons. Visual Communication 2(1). 75–95.10.1177/1470357203002001755Suche in Google Scholar

Falkenburg, R. L. 1988. Joachim Patinir. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Suche in Google Scholar

Fludernik, M. (ed.). 2011. Beyond cognitive metaphor theory: Perspectives on literary metaphor. London: Routledge.10.4324/9780203815809Suche in Google Scholar

Forceville, C. 1988. The case for pictorial metaphor: René Magritte and other Surrealists. Vestnik IMS 9(1). 150–160.Suche in Google Scholar

Forceville, C. 2002. Pictorial metaphor in advertising. London: Routledge.10.4324/9780203064252Suche in Google Scholar

Forceville, C. 2008. Metaphor in pictures and multimodal representations. In R. W. Gibbs Jr (ed.), Cambridge handbook of metaphor and thought, 462–482. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511816802.028Suche in Google Scholar

Forceville, C. 2009. Non-verbal and multimodal metaphor in a cognitivist framework: Agendas for research. In Charles Forceville & Eduardo Urios-Aparisi (eds.), Multimodal metaphor, 19–42. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110215366Suche in Google Scholar

Forceville, C. 2012. Metaphor and symbol: Searching for one’s identity is looking for a home in animation film. Review of Cognitive Linguistics 11(2). 250–268.10.1075/bct.78.03forSuche in Google Scholar

Forceville, C. & E. Urios-Aparisi. 2009. Multimodal metaphor. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110215366Suche in Google Scholar

Gibbs Jr., R. W. (ed.). 2008. The Cambridge handbook of metaphor and thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511816802Suche in Google Scholar

Gibbs Jr., R. W. 2011. Evaluating conceptual metaphor theory. Discourse Processes 48(8). 529–562.10.1080/0163853X.2011.606103Suche in Google Scholar

Goatly, A. 2007. Washing the brain metaphor and hidden ideology. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/dapsac.23Suche in Google Scholar

Green, J. D. 1985. Picasso’s visual metaphors. Journal of Aesthetic Education 19(4). 61–76.10.2307/3332299Suche in Google Scholar

Hall, J. 2008. The sinister side: How left-right symbolism shaped Western art. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Howard, D. 1992. Elsheimer’s Flight into Egypt and the night sky in the Renaissance. Berlin & Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag.10.2307/1482611Suche in Google Scholar

Jeong, S. H. 2008. Visual metaphor in advertising: Is the persuasive effect attributable to visual argumentation or metaphorical rhetoric? Journal of Marketing Communications 14(1). 59–73.10.1080/14697010701717488Suche in Google Scholar

Johnson, M. 2013. The body in the mind: The bodily basis of meaning, imagination, and reason. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Kövecses, Z. 2008. Conceptual metaphor theory: Some criticisms and alternative proposals. Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics 6(1). 168–184.10.1075/arcl.6.08kovSuche in Google Scholar

Kövecses, Z. 2010. Metaphor: A practical introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Kövecses, Z. 2018. Metaphor, cognition, culture. In M. J. Gelfand, C. Chiu & Y. Hong (eds.), Handbook of advances in culture and psychology, 61–106. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oso/9780190879228.003.0002Suche in Google Scholar

Lakoff, G. & M. Johnson. 1980. Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Lakoff, G. & M. Johnson. 1999. Philosophy in the flesh: The embodied mind and its challenge to western thought. New York: Basic Books.Suche in Google Scholar

Landau, M. J., B. P. Meier & L. A. Keefer. 2010. A metaphor-enriched social cognition. Psychological Bulletin 136(6). 1045–1067.10.1037/a0020970Suche in Google Scholar

Martindale, C. 1990. The clockwork muse: The predictability of artistic change. New York: Basic Books.Suche in Google Scholar

Meier, B. P. & S. Dionne. 2009. Downright sexy: Verticality, implicit power, and perceived physical attractiveness. Social Cognition 27(6). 883–892.10.1521/soco.2009.27.6.883Suche in Google Scholar

Musolff, A. 2004. Metaphor and political discourse. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.10.1057/9780230504516Suche in Google Scholar

Musolff, A. 2016. Political metaphor analysis: Discourse and scenarios. New York: Bloomsbury.Suche in Google Scholar

Ortony, A. 1979. Beyond literal similarity. Psychological Review 86(3). 161–180.10.1037/0033-295X.86.3.161Suche in Google Scholar

Parry, E. 1988. The art of Thomas Cole: Ambition and imagination. Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Pérez-Sobrino, P. & N. Julich. 2014. Let’s talk music: A corpus-based account of musical motion. Metaphor and Symbol 29(4). 298–315.10.1080/10926488.2014.948800Suche in Google Scholar

Petrenko, V. F. & E. A. Korotchenko. 2012. Metaphor as a basic mechanism of art (painting). Psychology in Russia 5. 531–567.10.11621/pir.2012.0033Suche in Google Scholar

Phillips, B. J. & E. F. McQuarrie. 2004. Beyond visual metaphor: A new typology of visual rhetoric in advertising. Marketing Theory 4(1–2). 113–136.10.1177/1470593104044089Suche in Google Scholar

Poppi, F. I. M. 2018. Machina ex homine, homo ex machina: Metaphor and ideology in Shinya Tsukamoto’s “Tetsuo: The Iron Man”. Metaphor and the Social World 8(2). 207–228.10.1075/msw.17003.popSuche in Google Scholar

Poppi, F. I. M., M. Bolognesi & A. Ojha. forthcoming. Imago dei: Metaphorical conceptualization of pictorial artworks within a participant-based framework. Semiotica.10.1515/sem-2018-0077Suche in Google Scholar

Poppi, F. I. M. & P. Kravanja. 2017. Annuntiatio domini: Metaphoric conceptualization and gesture analysis in painted representations of the Annunciation. Public Journal of Semiotics 8(1). 26–45.10.37693/pjos.2017.8.16989Suche in Google Scholar

Poppi, F. I. M. & P. Kravanja. 2019a. Actiones secundum fidei: Antithesis and metaphoric conceptualization in Banksy’s graffiti art. Metaphor and the Social World 9(1). 83–106.10.1075/msw.17021.popSuche in Google Scholar

Poppi, F. I. M. & P. Kravanja. 2019b. Aurora musis amica: Metaphoric conceptualization of depression in online visual representations. Visual Communication.10.1177/1470357219852140Suche in Google Scholar

Poppi, F. I. M. & E. Urios-Aparisi. 2019. De corporibus humanis: Metaphor and ideology in the representation of the human body in cinema. Metaphor & Symbol 33(4). 295–314.10.1080/10926488.2018.1549838Suche in Google Scholar

Reijnierse, W. G., C. Burgers, T. Krennmayr & G. J. Steen. 2015. How viruses and beasts affect our opinions (or not): The role of extendedness in metaphorical framing. Metaphor and the Social World 5(2). 245–263.10.1075/msw.5.2.04reiSuche in Google Scholar

Ritchie, D. L. 2008. X is a journey: Embodied simulation in metaphor interpretation. Metaphor and Symbol 23. 174–199.10.1080/10926480802223085Suche in Google Scholar

Schilperoord, J., A. Maes & H. Ferdinandusse. 2009. Perceptual and conceptual visual rhetoric: The case of symmetric object alignment. Metaphor and Symbol 24(3). 155–173.10.1080/10926480903028110Suche in Google Scholar

Silver, L & P. Bruegel. 2011. Pieter Bruegel. New York: Abbeville Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Steen, G. J., A. G. Dorst, J. B. Herrmann, A. Kaal, T. Krennmayr & T. Pasma. 2010. A method for linguistic metaphor identification: From MIP to MIPVU. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/celcr.14Suche in Google Scholar

Taylor, L. 1990. The rainbow serpent as visual metaphor in western Arnhem land. Oceania 60(4). 329–344.10.1002/j.1834-4461.1990.tb01559.xSuche in Google Scholar

Thibodeau, P. H. & L. Boroditsky. 2015. Measuring effects of metaphor in a dynamic opinion landscape. PloS One 10(7). e0133939.10.1371/journal.pone.0133939Suche in Google Scholar

Turner, J. M. W. & F. Kelly. 2007. J. M. W. Turner. London: Tate.Suche in Google Scholar

Valcanover, F. & T. Pignatti. 1985. Tintoretto. New York: Harry N. Abrams.Suche in Google Scholar

Van Mulken, M., R. Le Pair & C. Forceville. 2010. The impact of perceived complexity, deviation and comprehension on the appreciation of visual metaphor in advertising across three European countries. Journal of Pragmatics 42(12). 3418–3430.10.1016/j.pragma.2010.04.030Suche in Google Scholar

Van Rompay, T. 2005. Expressions: Embodiment in the experience of design. The Netherlands: PhD dissertation, Technische Universiteit Delft.Suche in Google Scholar

Walther, I. F., R. Metzger & M. Chagall. 2000. Chagall. Chicago: Taschen.Suche in Google Scholar

Wolf, N. 2003. Caspar David Friedrich, 1774–1840: The painter of stillness. Chicago: Taschen.Suche in Google Scholar

Wollheim, R. 1993. Metaphor and painting. In F. R. Ankersmit & J. J. A. Mooij (eds.), Knowledge and language, 113–125. Dortrecht: Springer.10.1007/978-94-011-1844-6_8Suche in Google Scholar

Yu, N. 2007. Heart and cognition in ancient Chinese philosophy. Journal of Cognition and Culture 7(1–2). 27–47.10.1163/156853707X171801Suche in Google Scholar

Zbikowski, L. M. 2008. Metaphor and music. In R. W. Gibbs Jr. (ed.), The Cambridge handbook of metaphor and thought, 502–524. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511816802.030Suche in Google Scholar

Published Online: 2019-08-20
Published in Print: 2019-10-25

© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Artikel in diesem Heft

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Introduction to Meaningful data/Données signifiantes
  3. A data-driven computational semiotics: The semantic vector space of Magritte’s artworks
  4. New approaches to plastic language: Prolegomena to a computer-aided approach to pictorial semiotics
  5. Mesures et savoirs : Quelles méthodes pour l’histoire culturelle à l’heure du big data ?
  6. Visual semiotics and automatic analysis of images from the Cultural Analytics Lab: How can quantitative and qualitative analysis be combined?
  7. Uncertain infographics: Expressing doubt in data visualization
  8. Quelques expériences pour développer l’expression de sens en cartographie thématique
  9. Raw data or hypersymbols? Meaning-making with digital data, between discursive processes and machinic procedures
  10. Differential heterogenesis and the emergence of semiotic function
  11. Regular Articles
  12. Semiotic alignment: Towards a dialogical model of interspecific communication
  13. Modal functioning of rhetorical resources in selected multimodal cartoons
  14. The mission of the Chinese puzzle: From a quest for order to seeking entertainment
  15. Memes, genes, and signs: Semiotics in the conceptual interface of evolutionary biology and memetics
  16. Formalisation sémiotique de la traduction : Le modèle transformationnel d’Alexandre Ljudskanov
  17. Glossopoesis in Thomas More’s Utopia: Beyond a representation of foreignness
  18. Playing peripatos: Creativity and abductive inference in religion, art and war
  19. Borders and translation: Revisiting Juri Lotman’s semiosphere
  20. Peirce’s philosophy of communication and language communication
  21. Mythic symbolic type, utopia, and body without organs
  22. The contribution of narrative semiotics of experiential imaginary to the ideation of new digital customer experiences
  23. Transference of brand personality in brand name translation: A case study on the Chinese-English translation of men’s clothing brands
  24. Intertextuality as a strategy of glocalization: A comparative study of Nike’s and Adidas’s 2008 advertising campaigns in China
  25. The semiotic web of the research proposal
  26. Sic vita est: Visual representation in painting of the conceptual metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY
Heruntergeladen am 21.9.2025 von https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/sem-2018-0009/html?lang=de
Button zum nach oben scrollen