Evgeniya A. Korotchenko

This article describes research on visual semantics, different forms of metaphor used in rhetoric and philology (tropes: metonymy, hyperbole, litotes, oxymoron, and others), and images, which are metaphorical also. The research was carried out using paintings. The authors state that the function of metaphor is to transform the sense of the image from a psychological point of view.

This article describes a categorical structure of perception of still-life painting. Analysis is done on the system of visual opposition elements in still-life. A still-life is considered a “perceptual statement about the world”, and a “visual aphorism”. The research is based on such methods as: semantic spaces constructing and their transformation at introduction of additional elements in still-lifes. It also gives full analysis of an interpretation of complex images and understanding of types of still-life as a visual hermeneutics.