This book is about perception of visual art and its metaphoric polysemy, visual metaphors and languages of interpretation. The author studies these issues using examples of works of Vrubel, Petrov-Vodkin, Filonov, and other artists. Sergei Daniel' (1949), professor of the I. Repin St. Petersburg Institute of Painting, Sculpture, and Art, is the author of several books on the history and theory of visual arts, including From Icon to Masterpieces of Russian Painting (2000). Name index. Bibliographic references.