Abstract
The paper analyzes the visual aspect of metaphors, offering a new theory of metaphor that characterizes
its syntactic structure, material composition and visuality as its essence. It will accordingly
present the metaphorical creating or transfiguring, as well as conceiving or understanding,
of one thing as a different one, as a visual ability. It is a predication by means of producing
non-conventional compositions – i.e., by compositional, or even aesthetic, means. This definition
is aimed to apply to the various kinds of metaphors: conceptual, linguistic, visual, and material. It
will thus challenge the definition of metaphor as a conceptual or linguistic phenomenon in nature
that is based on its semantic mechanism, broad concepts, and cognitive value. Those definitions
have been prevalent since the second half of 20th century, under the influence of the philosophy
of language, and later of cognitive studies.