Editing Metaphor (section)

=== Nonlinguistic metaphors ===
[[File:Tombe juive de femmes - Jewish tombstone of women.jpg|thumb|Tombstone of a [[Jewish]] woman depicting broken candles, a visual metaphor of the end of life]]

Metaphors can map experience between two nonlinguistic realms. [[Musicologist]] [[Leonard B. Meyer]] demonstrated how purely rhythmic and harmonic events can express human emotions.<ref>Meyer, L. (1956) Emotion and Meaning in Music. Chicago: [[University of Chicago Press]]</ref>

Art theorist Robert Vischer argued that when we look at a painting, we "feel ourselves into it" by imagining our body in the posture of a nonhuman or inanimate object in the painting. For example, the painting ''[[The Lonely Tree]]'' by [[Caspar David Friedrich]] shows a tree with contorted, barren limbs.<ref>Vischer, R. (1873) Über das optische Formgefühl: Ein Beitrag zur Aesthetik. Leipzig: Hermann Credner. For an English translation of selections, see Wind, E. (1963) Art and Anarchy. London: Faber and Faber.</ref> Looking at the painting, some recipients may imagine their limbs in a similarly contorted and barren shape, evoking a feeling of strain and distress.{{cn |date=November 2024}} 

Nonlinguistic metaphors may be the foundation of our experience of visual and musical art, as well as dance and other art forms.<ref>Johnson, M. & Larson, S. (2003) "Something in the way she moves" – Metaphors of musical motion. Metaphor and Symbol, 18:63–84</ref><ref>Whittock, T. (1992) The role of metaphor in dance. British Journal of Aesthetics, 32:242–249.
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