Introduction

Against the background of research into image schemas (Johnson 1987), this chapter introduces the theoretical frame for the case studies in Chapters 2 and 3. The data sample of cartoons by Janusz Kapusta, a Polish artist, is described, and a preliminary is given to how the interaction of the verbal and pictorial modalities will be studied in the following chapters. The discussion focuses on the role of image-schematic metaphors in spatial construals of abstract concepts in Janusz Kapusta’s cartoons, which are treated here as a more specific genre of verbo-pictorial aphorisms. The method of analysis is exemplified with three verbo-pictorial aphorisms that provide a novel understanding of the concepts of errors, nightmares, unfulfilled dreams, and of significance of a human being. In contrast to the gestural medium, films and music, where the relevant elements of image-schematic source domains of a metaphor are never fully available at once, the verbo-pictorial aphorisms provide access to a conceptual image which can be inspected as a single gestalt. Crucially, it is the static composition of verbo-pictorial aphorisms as a genre that makes them a valuable source of data for investigating the question of how the pictorial and the verbal modality interact in understanding abstract ideas in multimodal discourse.