Visual Metaphors: A Methodological Study in Visual Communication

In Visual Metaphors, Hatcher provides an objective means of analyzing, describing, and comparing art forms regardless of content, style, or medium. Methodologically, the rigorous descriptive vocabulary presented in this book is a valuable step in systematizing the vocabulary used by the different disciplines to describe and analyze art forms. As Hatcher asserts, "When we get into problems of interpretation, it becomes important to have objective description, and to at least conceptually separate the visible forms from the meanings we infer." Although examples of Navajo art comprise the majority of Hatcher's test case material, Visual Metaphors is chiefly a methodological work on visual communication rather than a book about sandpaintings per se. This study furthers our understanding of what aspects are culturally determined, and in what ways there are cross-cultural universals in visual communication. The need to test currently held ideas about the meaning of art forms (form qualities in Hatcher's terminology) continues to be important. Visual Metaphors addresses theoretical and methodological concerns of art and anthropology which are as relevant to anthropologists, archaeologist, and art historians today, as they were when the book was first published.