The ‘Interanimation’ of Worlds: Creative Metaphors in Art and Design

Abstract

Creative metaphors in language juxtapose two words which appear quite different on the surface, but share an underlying similarity given a particular context. In the metaphor ‘life is a river,’ the vehicle ‘river’ modifies the tenor ‘life’ and draws our attention to life's meandering and the constant flow of time. Scholars have emphasized a dynamic tension between tenor and vehicle and that the vehicle (‘river’) is always salient modifying the tenor (‘life’) and never vice versa. A central argument of this paper is that: (1) the vehicle is salient because it is always relatively more concrete than the tenor on the sensory-verbal-symbolic continuum, and (2) the vehicle always modifies the tenor implicitly and spontaneously so that they are experienced as a unity. These ideas have been extended to successful art and design metaphors. The surface difference in artworks and design objects is between denotative subject matter and connotative style or function and form respectively. The underlying similarity reflect the influence of concrete sensory style or form properties which resonate with subject matter or function respectively thereby creating a tacit experience of fit. This unified experience establishes a bridge between the viewer/user and the work that is the foundation for a personal attachment to it.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gerald C. Cupchik

BIOGRAPHY

Gerald Cupchik is professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. He is past president of the International Association for Empirical Aesthetics (1992-94), Division 10 of the American Psychological Association: Psychology and the Arts (1996-97), and of the International Society for the Empirical Study of Literature (1998-2000). His interests encompass aesthetics and the psychology of emotion. In aesthetics, he studies both acts of creation and reception using diverse materials and methods, ranging from experiments to semi-structured interviews. In the area of emotion, his goal is to build bridges between two seemingly incompatible views, the behavioural/cognitive and the phenomenological/psychodynamic.