Metaphors on Vision

“Imagine an eye unruled by man-made laws of perspective … an eye which does not respond to the name of everything but which must know each object encountered in life through an adventure of perception. How many colors are there in a field of grass to the crawling baby unaware of ‘Green?’” So begins Stan Brakhage’s (1933–2003) classic Metaphors on Vision. Originally published in 1963 by Jonas Mekas as a special issue of Film Culture, and designed by George Maciunas, it stands as the major theoretical statement by one of avant-garde cinema’s most influential figures, a treatise on mythopoeia and the nature of visual experience written in a style as idiosyncratic as his art. Long out of print, the volume is now available in this definitive edition from Anthology Film Archives and Light Industry, featuring Brakhage’s complete text in its distinctive original layout, as well as annotations by scholar P. Adams Sitney.