Looking in the Mirror of Renaissance Art

Abstract

This paper has a dual focus concerning the use of the mirror in making and viewing Renaissance art. It considers the mirror both as an instrument of artistic practice, and as an emblem of pictorial representation within painting. Inaugurated by Brunelleschi's great experiment staged at the door of Florence Cathedral on the one hand, and Van Eyck's Arnolfini Double Portrait on the other, a Renaissance art of mimetic resemblance was predicated on a deeply-worked approximation between the mirror reflection and the theory of painting. This close affinity between the mirror and the painting's surface, as Leonardo's notes make manifest, underpinned both the theory and practice of Renaissance art as constituted in the studied imitation of visual observation. Thus the mirror reflection became, both within the workshop and within representation, the instrument and the definition of what a painting was. Notes The research for this essay was funded by the AHRC. My thanks to Sam Bibby, Sam Cohn, Richard Taws and Jack Warwick for their thoughts and comments.

Cultures of Digitization: A Historiographic Perspective on Digital Art History

“…For example, in an article on mirrors in Renaissance art, Genevieve Warwick points to Caravaggio's work which "stand[s] as an emblem of this painter's art of realism, advancing the claim of this artist who famously purported to 'paint what I see'." 11 In this short passage, both the content of the artwork and the voice of the artist are brought out. In Art Journal, Caravaggio is only mentioned in one article, which cites him as one of many "LGBTQ practitioners" in the history of art as well as one of many artists who "engaged with homoeroticism or negotiated homophobia in their work."…”