Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-07T22:18:09.478Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Artistic Metaphor

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 September 2020

Daisy Dixon
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Philosophical analysis of metaphor in the non-linguistic arts has been biased towards what I call the ‘aesthetic metaphor’: metaphors in non-linguistic art are normally understood as being completely formed by the work's internal content, that is, by its perceptual and aesthetic properties such as its images. I aim to unearth and analyse a neglected type of metaphor also used by the non-linguistic arts: the ‘artistic metaphor’, as I call it. An artistic metaphor is composed by an artwork's internal content, but also by its external content, which is provided by the work's artistic properties such as its history. The artistic metaphor has been gestured at but not afforded a considered analysis; I aim to do this. Identifying the artistic metaphor has at least two benefits. It shows how curation plays a role in generating metaphors in artworks, which has been overlooked, and it illuminates a potentially powerful tool to interpret and understand ‘conceptual’ art.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy , Volume 96 , Issue 1 , January 2021 , pp. 1 - 25
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adajian, Thomas, ‘The Definition of Art’ in (ed.) Zalta, E. N., The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2018) Retrieved from: <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2018/entries/art-definition/> on 19th January, 2020.Google Scholar
Aldrich, Virgil, ‘Visual Metaphor’, The Journal of Aesthetic Education, 2 (1968), 73–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bache, Christopher, ‘Towards a Unified Theory of Metaphor’, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 39 (1980), 185–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beardsley, Monroe, Aesthetics: Problems in the Philosophy of Criticism (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1981).Google Scholar
Becker, Howard, Art Worlds (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1982).Google Scholar
Bell, Clive, Art (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1914).Google Scholar
Bingham, Juliet (2010) ‘Ai Weiwei Sunflower Seeds 2010 Summary’ Retrieved from: <https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/ai-sunflower-seeds-t13408> on 12th August 2019.+on+12th+August+2019.>Google Scholar
Black, Max, Models and Metaphors (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1962).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Black, Max, ‘More about metaphor’, in Ortony, A. (ed.), Metaphor and Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979).Google Scholar
Borg, Emma, ‘An Expedition Abroad: Metaphor, Thought, and Reporting’, Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 25 (2001), 227–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Camp, Elisabeth & Reimer, Marga, ‘Metaphor’ in The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Language (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).Google Scholar
Carroll, Noël, ‘Art and Interaction’, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 45 (1986), 57–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carroll, Noël, ‘Visual Metaphor’, (1994) in his Beyond Aesthetics: Philosophical Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carroll, Noël, ‘Interpretation and Intention: The Debate Between Hypothetical and Actual Intentionalism’, Metaphilosophy, 31 (2000), 75–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chayka, Kyle (2010) ‘Ai Weiwei Spreads a Sunflower Seed Carpet at Tate's Turbine Hall’ Hyperallergic Retrieved from: <https://hyperallergic.com/10574/ai-weiwei-turbine-hall/> on 9th May 2018. on 9th May 2018.' href=https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Chayka,+Kyle+(2010)+‘Ai+Weiwei+Spreads+a+Sunflower+Seed+Carpet+at+Tate's+Turbine+Hall’+Hyperallergic+Retrieved+from:++on+9th+May+2018.>Google Scholar
Cunningham, John (2011) ‘Ai Weiwei’ Encyclopaedia Britannica Retrieved from: <https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ai-Weiwei#ref1117950> on 10th May 2018.+on+10th+May+2018.>Google Scholar
Danto, Arthur, ‘The Artworld’, Journal of Philosophy, 61 (1964), 571–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Danto, Arthur, The Transfiguration of the Commonplace: A Philosophy of Art (Harvard University Press, 1981).Google Scholar
Davies, Stephen, ‘Interpreting Contextualities’, Philosophy and Literature, 20 (1996), 20–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davies, Stephen, The Philosophy of Art (Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2016).Google Scholar
Dickie, George, ‘The Myth of the Aesthetic Attitude’, American Philosophical Quarterly, 1 (1964), 56–65.Google Scholar
Eaton, A. W., ‘What's Wrong with the (Female) Nude?’, in (eds.) Maes, H., & Levinson, J., Art and Pornography: Philosophical Essays (Oxford University Press, 2012).Google Scholar
Feinstein, Hermine, ‘Meaning and Visual Metaphor’, Studies in Art Education, 43 (1982), 45–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Forceville, Charles, ‘Metaphor in Pictures and Multi-modal Representations’, in (ed.) Gibbs, R.W., The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008).Google Scholar
Gilot, Francoise & Lake, Carlton, Life with Picasso (McGraw-Hill, 1964).Google Scholar
Goldie, Peter, ‘Conceptual Art and Knowledge’, in (eds.) Goldie, P., & Schellekens, E., Philosophy and Conceptual Art (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).Google Scholar
Goodman, Nelson, Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2nd edition, 1976).Google Scholar
Hanson, Louise, ‘The Reality of (Non-Aesthetic) Artistic Value’, The Philosophical Quarterly, 63 (2013), 492–508.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hausman, Carl, Metaphor and Art: Interactionism and Reference in the Verbal and Nonverbal Arts (Cambridge University Press, 1989).Google Scholar
Heffernan, James, ‘Resemblance, signification, and metaphor in the visual arts’, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 44 (1985), 171–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hopkins, Robert, ‘Speaking Through Silence: Conceptual Art and Conversational Implicature’, in Philosophy and Conceptual Art.Google Scholar
Hospers, John, Meaning and Truth in the Arts (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1946).Google Scholar
Korsmeyer, Caroline, ‘On Distinguishing “Aesthetic” from “Artistic”’, The Journal of Aesthetic Education, 11 (1977), 45–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, George & Johnson, Mark, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980).Google Scholar
Lamarque, Peter, ‘On Perceiving Conceptual Art’, in Philosophy and Conceptual Art.Google Scholar
Levinson, Jerrold, ‘Defending Hypothetical Intentionalism’, British Journal of Aesthetics, 50 (2010), 139–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lippard, Lucy, Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972 (New York: Praeger, 1973).Google Scholar
Lippman, Edward, ‘Symbolism in Music’, The Musical Quarterly, 39 (1953), 554–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mullane, Matthew, ‘The aesthetic ear: sound art, Jacques Rancière and the politics of listening’, Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, 21 (2010).Google Scholar
Owen, Wilfred, ‘Exposure’, The Poems of Wilfred Owen (London: Chatto & Windus, 1946).Google Scholar
Richards, I. A., The Philosophy of Rhetoric (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1937).Google Scholar
Rothenberg, Albert, ‘Visual Art. Homospatial Thinking in the Creative Process’, Leonardo, the MIT Press, 13 (1980), 17–27.Google Scholar
Rough, Robert, ‘Metaphor in the art of Vincent van Gogh’, The Centennial Review, 19 (1975), 362–79.Google Scholar
Schellekens, Elisabeth, ‘The Aesthetic Value of Ideas’, in (eds.) Goldie, P., & Schellekens, E., Philosophy and Conceptual Art (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).Google Scholar
Sedivy, Sonia, ‘Metaphoric Pictures, Pulsars, Platypuses’, Metaphor and Symbol, 122 (1997), 95–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shelley, James, ‘The Problem of Non-Perceptual Art’, British Journal of Aesthetics, 43 (2003), 363–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stecker, Robert, ‘Artistic Value Defended’, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 70 (2012), 355–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stolnitz, Jerome, Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art Criticism (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1960).Google Scholar
‘Interpretation Text’ Tate (2010) Retrieved from: <https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/unilever-series/unilever-series-ai-weiwei-sunflower-seeds/unilever> on 12th August, 2019.+on+12th+August,+2019.>Google Scholar
Ventzislavov, Rossen, ‘Idle Arts: Reconsidering the Curator’, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 72 (2014), 83–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walker, Shaun (2014) ‘Petr Pavlensky: why I nailed my scrotum to Red Square’ The Guardian Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/feb/05/petr-pavlensky-nailed-scrotum-red-square on 17th December 2019.Google Scholar
Walton, Kendall, ‘Categories of Art’, The Philosophical Review, 79 (1970), 334–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weitz, Morris, Philosophy of the Arts (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weiwei, Ai (2010) ‘The Unilever Series: Ai Weiwei: Sunflower Seeds: Artist's quotes’ Retrieved from: <https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/unilever-series/unilever-series-ai-weiwei-sunflower-seeds/unilever-0> on 13th August, 2019. on 13th August, 2019.' href=https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Weiwei,+Ai+(2010)+‘The+Unilever+Series:+Ai+Weiwei:+Sunflower+Seeds:+Artist's+quotes’+Retrieved+from:++on+13th+August,+2019.>Google Scholar
Wishart, Trevor, On Sonic Art (ed.,) Emmerson, S., (Psychology Press, 1996).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wood, Paul, Conceptual Art (Movements in Modern Art) (London: Tate Publishing, 2002).Google Scholar
Young, James, Art and Knowledge (London: Routledge, 2001).Google Scholar