Meaning and Visual Metaphor

Langer contends that metaphor is not only an essential process and product of thought, but also that art is metaphor. Her views can serve to justify arts education on epistemological grounds, thus establishing arts education as basic to the cultivation of human intelligence. This article elaborates on Langer's thesis, discussing symbolization and the fundamental components of metaphor; examines the nature of visual metaphor, using Ortony's construct of linguistic metaphor as an explanatory foil; and explains how differences between visual and linguistic metaphors bear on the problem of interpreting art.