Metaphor as a language of art

In order for a person to be able to relate to a work of art, they must understand its meaning. Understanding the meaning implies knowledge of the language, signs, symbols, and forms in which it is implied. To understand the nature or essence of art, one often resorts to a semiotic concept such as metaphor. Art is often considered to be one big metaphor in itself. The study of metaphor has a long history, but its intensive study began in the last two decades. The scope of metaphor is very broad, it is found in almost every form of human communication; it is said that metaphors are even used in the speech of the deaf and dumb. In the case of metaphor, we have emotion. Once the entire mythic consciousness has been fragmented into theoretical, political, ethical, aesthetic, religious spheres, It seemed like there should be no room for metaphorical thinking, but (aesthetics - art) turned out to be the field that made metaphor the main tool of the language of art. A person with a mythic consciousness had no doubt about the unity of himself and the world, and he truly believed that objects and events were carriers of human qualities. In other words, in myth, the sign and the signified coincided, while art made metaphorical language a basic element of its artistic fabric, with only one condition: the sign does not coincide with the signified. Which means that the artist, unlike the mythical man, does not believe that his properties and the properties of the world, of things, are identical, That there is a difference between man and the events of the world, although he uses a metaphor to emphasize the conditional nature of this. The syncretism characteristic of mythological consciousness was conditioned by metaphorical thinking, which was preserved through certain metamorphoses in art.  

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Publication Details

Journal
enadakultura
Published
2025-05-19
DOI
https://doi.org/10.52340/lac.2025.33.17
Primary Topic
Language, Metaphor, and Cognition
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
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article

Metaphor as a language of art

Nana Guliashvili
enadakultura
Language, Metaphor, and Cognition
article

Metaphor as a language of art

Nana Guliashvili
article en

Abstract

In order for a person to be able to relate to a work of art, they must understand its meaning. Understanding the meaning implies knowledge of the language, signs, symbols, and forms in which it is implied. To understand the nature or essence of art, one often resorts to a semiotic concept such as metaphor. Art is often considered to be one big metaphor in itself. The study of metaphor has a long history, but its intensive study began in the last two decades. The scope of metaphor is very broad, it is found in almost every form of human communication; it is said that metaphors are even used in the speech of the deaf and dumb. In the case of metaphor, we have emotion. Once the entire mythic consciousness has been fragmented into theoretical, political, ethical, aesthetic, religious spheres, It seemed like there should be no room for metaphorical thinking, but (aesthetics - art) turned out to be the field that made metaphor the main tool of the language of art. A person with a mythic consciousness had no doubt about the unity of himself and the world, and he truly believed that objects and events were carriers of human qualities. In other words, in myth, the sign and the signified coincided, while art made metaphorical language a basic element of its artistic fabric, with only one condition: the sign does not coincide with the signified. Which means that the artist, unlike the mythical man, does not believe that his properties and the properties of the world, of things, are identical, That there is a difference between man and the events of the world, although he uses a metaphor to emphasize the conditional nature of this. The syncretism characteristic of mythological consciousness was conditioned by metaphorical thinking, which was preserved through certain metamorphoses in art.  

enadakultura
Tbilisi State University (GE)
Quality Education
Openalex Percentile: Top 89%
Language, Metaphor, and Cognition
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