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art-mirrors-art.bsky.social
History of mirrors in art. A bit of history of mirrors themselves, as a technology. And history of ideas and practices related to mirrors, in different cultures and times. And also - history of our mistakes in interpreting all the above.
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A fully decorated Etruscan cinerary urn with a lid in the form of a reclining woman and a detailed base sarcophagus. The central relief shows the (same?) woman with what again seem to be a #mirror in a square hinged box, held by an attendant.

submitted 20 hours ago • 0 comments

Etruscan cinerary urn depicting a reclining woman holding what could be a round bronze #mirror encased in a square hinged box; from the collection of the Museum of Etruscan History in Volterra

submitted 20 hours ago • 1 comment

This post reminded me my own short post about Marcia's iconography that I wrote - in fact, one of the first in my saga about 'art mirrors' 🙂 It's still online - artmirrorsart.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/d...; it feels a bit naive to me now, but hey - it was 15 years ago!

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

There was a big splash here in Europe last year as Surrealism celebrated its 100th anniversary. I managed to visit two large exhibitions held for the occasion in Brussels. Interesting, yes, but with my mirror fixation, I was more impressed by Christie's sale of this Magritte.

submitted 11 days ago • 1 comment

This post triggered me to search for 'art mirrors' of 'American Surrealists' (about whom I knew very little, unsurprisingly. Here in Europe we tend to say 'Hm?' when hearing about Am Surrealism, or Am Impressionism etc). I’ve found an interesting #Mirror (aka Enigma), by Helen Lundeberg (c. 1934)

submitted 11 days ago • 1 comment

Ying Gao, an acclaimed fashion designer from Montreal, presented her new collection, All Mirrors, in which the garments are equipped with eye-tracking cameras and robotic actuators that transform sets of soft #mirrors into kaleidoscopic constellations when people look at them.

submitted 12 days ago • 1 comment

An advertising for the Turkish cigarette brand Murad (c.1916), an epic example John Berger's 'male gaze': “Men act, and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.” - Ways of Seeing, 1972. The #mirror here frames not the woman, but the man (watching her)

submitted 12 days ago • 0 comments

Dan Graham was perhaps the most famous contemporary artist known for his tireless experimentation with #mirror (and glass) surfaces in relation to nature (and broader, to environments). He created dozens of installations that explored this motif in various ways. This is Oktogon für Münster (1987)

submitted 16 days ago • 1 comment

I reposted a mirror-mimicking composition by Matt Shadbolt yesterday (bsky.app/profile/art-...) and - of course - less than an hour later stumbled upon an old project by Andrew Kearney, On Arriving (2016). Though not only about #mirrors, it does explore their juxtaposition with nature(s)

submitted 16 days ago • 0 comments

One AI-generated image of 'nature' is embedded within another AI-generated image to 'nature', to mimic a 'mirror,' collectively to enact a 'portal.' This sent me down a Dan Graham/Bill Brandt-esque rabbit hole of 'mirrors in nature'; also, why haven’t I finished my post about Nkisi figurines yet?

submitted 18 days ago • 0 comments

An interesting presentation, and I look forward to hearing the story. I hope something will be said about #mirrors and the (changing) role they played over time. The engraving 'Femme de qualité étant à sa toilette' is from the book 'Recueil des modes de la cour de France' by Nicolas Arnoult

submitted 19 days ago • 0 comments

Just found this interesting statue of three-headed #Prudence in the collection of the National Gallery of Art (NGA) in Washington, DC. Made of marble and ~ 70 cm tall, it's attributed to Bonino da Campione and dated circa 1357. It was likely part of the Virtues Group in one of the tombs he designed

submitted 20 days ago • 1 comment

Christie's is auctioning a rare early portrait attributed to Parmigianino, completed before he moved to Rome. It's called A Man with an Arched Window, but I think that description is not corect. We should expect more from the artist who gave us the best depiction of a smartphone in a convex mirror!

submitted 21 days ago • 1 comment

I've recently finished an overview of the 'art mirrors' of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: Through the Savage Glass: Kirchner’s Bohemian Mirrors artmirrorsart.wordpress.com/2024/12/21/8... Thought I’d complete it last year but didn’t manage, so it now serves as the inaugural #art_mirrors_art post for 2025

submitted 21 days ago • 0 comments

Jacques Linard, The Five Senses and the Four Elements, 1627, Oil on canvas, 105 x 153 cm (Musée du Louvre, Paris) #earlymodern #skystorians #timelinecleanse

submitted 32 days ago • 1 comment

To start with, this exquisite Iron Age Celtic #mirror is simply beautiful. Many ancient Celtic mirrors are stunning, but this one stands out for its intricate design🪞✨ It is often used to illustrate the recent groundbreaking Nature paper on the unique matrilocal structure of the Celtic society.

submitted 29 days ago • 3 comments

The latest post I’ve completed is about ELK (Ernst Ludwig Kirchner) and his #mirrors: Through the Savage Glass: Kirchner’s Bohemian Mirrors artmirrorsart.wordpress.com/2024/12/21/8... It's a rather long post, in the manner of 'Catalogue Reflectonné' where I try to overview *all* his mirror art

submitted 31 days ago • 0 comments

AMA, or Art Mirrors Art, is my hobby research project about (the history of) #mirrors in #art; by extension, it goes into history of mirrors as a #technology, and further still, into history of *ideas* about mirrors - how mirrors have been used and understood in different cultures and times.

submitted 31 days ago • 2 comments