This article argues that much of the meaning of artworks comes through metaphors, though they sometimes go unnoticed. The article draws on the work by Lakoff and Johnson, who assert a similar claim about metaphors in general. It analyses the notion of visual metaphor and claims that contrary to linguistic metaphors, there can be more than one visual metaphor ('mixed metaphors') active in a visual image and that visual metaphors can be interpreted in both directions. Verticality is presented as one basic metaphor in visual images.