Mirrors: Reflection and Realism

The realm of fantasy has a lot of mirrors that contain wonderful worlds on the other side. These worlds are wonderful because in the blank of mirrors, beyond those reflections, only imagination exists; they remain wonderful because the ‘other side’ of mirrors can’t be accessed. Perhaps it because of our familiarity with our own side, which abates our amusement with it, that we always fantasise about these mirror worlds that look the same and yet are ‘the other’.

Reality confirms that such mirrors, containing wonderful worlds, only exist in the realm of fantasy. For a mirror is essentially blank…the blank can’t contain… the blank doesn’t have anything of its own because it is, well, blank. It just reflects everything in its plain exactness. And outside the realm of fantasy, the virtue of mirrors lies not in containing fantastical worlds, but reflecting our own in its exactness and precision.

Of all the well-known painted mirrors, one of the most important in fine arts is a round convex mirror in the Arnolfini Wedding Portrait, which owes its immense fame to its precision of detail in reflection.

The Arnolfini Wedding Portrait by Jan Van Eyck is a full size portrait of a newlywed couple, holding hands, standing in a room that has a huge round convex mirror on the rear wall. The mirror lies at the heart of this painting despite being in the background; the quality of a convex mirror to converge the size of reflected image while maintaining clear details is what Jan Van Eyck utilises to portray the opposite side of the room. The scene on the opposite side shows two figures just entering the room. The cold expression on the couple’s faces, otherwise unfit for a wedding portrait, can now be explained by the reflected scene as dismay over interruption by visitors. Knowledge of the scene on the opposite side changes our perception of scene on this side.

Turns out, a mirror need not contain an alternate world on the other side to inspire imagination. This mirror and the way Van Eyck used it has inspired a multitude of artists from all times, and had a major influence on artists of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood four centuries later. This was a group of artists who advocated realism in its extreme detail and precision, and were greatly intrigued by the mirror in the Arnolfini portrait. Mirrors are commonly featured in Pre-Raphaelite paintings, a lot of them painted in the likeness of that of the Arnolfini Portrait. Though mirrors have always been a valued tool in realist art, for the Pre-Raphaelites, mirrors were important not just for their form, but also the subject, meaning and symbolism of what they painted.

In Il Dolce Far Niente by William Holman Hunt, the eyes of the lady fixedly gaze at the spectator, or the artists for whom she might be modelling. As used in the Arnolfini portrait to show the opposite side, such mirrors have been used by many artists to create double portraits in their paintings—portraying themselves in the very act of painting that painting. A closer look of the mirror on the rear wall in ‘Il Dolce Far Niente’, however, shows no one on the opposite side. Instead of gazing at a spectator, or modelling for the artist painting her, she is found to be just staring into the fireplace. The reflection in the mirror is what, in fact, gives meaning to the painting and makes good its title “the sweet pleasure of doing nothing”.

In another painting by the same artist, ‘The Awakening Conscience’, a couple are captured in the middle of what seems like a light romantic moment. Various objects in their surroundings, along with the lack of a ring on girl’s left hand, make it clear that she lives in an unhappy state of a mistress. Yet the girl looks hopeful and dreamy. A reflection in the mirror behind her, of a green and sunny world on the outside, reveals what she actually fancies—freedom away from this luxurious entrapment, not idle romance that provides for her vain pleasures.

Hunt was one of the founding artists of Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. These paintings are prime examples of how the Pre-Raphaelite concept of realism was much more extensive than its visual aspect. Here, realism does not mean photo-realistic rendering of what fits in the frame. Their paintings certainly have much more than what can fit in a frame and this realism is rather concerned with presenting the picture in its entirety and exactness—what mirrors are used for.

These mirrors, more than reflecting what we can’t view otherwise, deflect our vision from what is right in front of us, and change our perspective about what we might see so plainly and take for granted. They remind us that there need not be worlds on the other side of mirrors, the world on this side is fascinating enough if looked at from new perspectives; and while fantasising about the inaccessible ‘other side’, we often miss out on reality of our own side.

Written by Eshna Gupta

Painting by Jan Van Eyck

Image Edited by Chetanya Godara

STARE OF THE MUSE

Art does not exist for the mere purpose of decorating shelf-tops and wall-fronts of palaces, neither does it exist for sitting ideally behind glass cases, hunting for the highest bidders. Coloured canvases have stories to tell that escape the yellow pages of historian’s journals—social histories, personal anecdotes, political upheavals—that could have been lost otherwise.

A painting might sit there, right above your head, without ever being looked at, unless it has something about it that has the power to trouble you and throw you out of your chair into a trail of questions leading up to those stories that escape the yellow pages of a historian’s journal. Even if you can’t dig up any social histories and personal anecdotes, it might just become your muse!

In that respect, Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring must have thrown a lot of people out of their chairs. For there is no end to the questions she raises, and there are no answers are to be found.

The Girl is recognizably European. She has a loose garment over her bust. As per today’s fashion, it might qualify as a camel-jacket thrown over a white pull-over, but people have trouble guessing what it might signify for a 17^th-century Dutch costume. The turban she wears is often identified as oriental, and is certainly odd for a European face. The earring itself is abnormally large and too finely polished for a pearl. Who is she? What is she wearing? Is that really a pearl earring? Is she wearing only one? Is it even her own?

Vermeer probably wasn’t convinced that these questions were troubling enough to throw you out of your chair, so he didn’t stop there. The girl looks back with her head turned as if having suddenly remembered something she had to do but did not do. Her lips are parted as if she was going to say something, but decided otherwise. The strong, expectant, unexplained gaze is hard to resist. What is it that had slipped her mind? What is it she wanted to say? Why does she gaze so?

Another question that must come to your mind is whether Vermeer intended to throw you out of your chair with this painting…for there isn’t just one reason why an artist might create something. Wondering about the artist’s intention is inevitable once you become aware of the effect it actually has on you. And it was one such trail of thought that left me wondering what effect the Girl had on me.

What she is wearing is far from familiar—more so for the times that I live in than any other. Her attire is very unrecognizable, and so is she. I say this for the only tag of recognition I can give her is that of a stranger; the attire that she has been portrayed with would make me believe that it was so for the artist, as it is for me.

Yet, there is something about her face that does not let her be a stranger—it haunts! The soft strokes of her face make it hazy, as if it were slowly fading away. At the same time, it is highlighted by the colour and shadow scheme which focuses the visitor’s gaze on it, making it all the more captivating. It all leads me to believe that she must have been either a stranger, someone refusing to be effaced from memory even when there remains no reason to remember them. Or a loved one, long gone and kept alive in memory, whom the passing days do efface much against our will. For she exists in this rather extraordinary amalgam of the strange and the familiar, the forgotten and the oft- evoked. I believe she personifies memory. Retained and renewed as memories are—through souvenirs — it is important that she is The Girl with the Pearl Earring, something which becomes indispensible to her very being.

Witness, memorise, record, send posterity on a quest and make it witness too—things both historians and artists do. Yet the whys behind the creation of art and whats of the artists’ intentions are always fascinating because all is never revealed, and what is revealed is never conclusive. This fascination is what throws people out of their chairs into a trail of questions that lead to discovery and creative expeditions. And as you might observe in this column throughout, this is what has thrown me out of my chair too, into a space where there are no constraints to my imagination.

It must have been such whys and whats of this painting as well, for they are innumerable and interminable, that would have led to the origin of the varied literature that surrounds it. The artist’s life history is lost to us. The painting itself remained undiscovered for more than two centuries after his death. This girl’s story is one of those which escaped the yellow pages of a historian’s journal, but the literature it went on to inspire ranges from Tracy Chevalier’s fiction, its movie adaptation, and play performances to scholarship that includes clinical studies as well as Edward Snow’s rather emotional account of his encounter with the stare. The painting, despite a lost history, did not get lost and managed to trouble us enough to bring forward a story—a story about the lack of a story.

Some stories will always get lost beneath unwritten pages of histories, simply because we don’t know them yet. But if you look around, there’s always one odd girl, one odd earring and one odd stare, looking back and asking, “Do you wonder why I exist?”

Written by Eshna Gupta

Painting by Johannes Vermeer

Image Edited by Chetanya Godara