On Reflection

by Jonathan Miller

How can we tell the difference between a reflection and the real thing? How does a reflection betray its identity? Why is it that when we look at a mirror we can see either our reflection or the mirror but not both at the same time? How and when do we learn to recognise our own reflection? What does a reflective surface look like and how can we distinguish it from a non-reflective surface? Why is it that certain paintings may be turned upside down and still be visually acceptable? How are the various qualities of reflection represented in art - from the diffuse sheen of burnished copper to the realism of silvered glass?
In this innovative book, published to accompany the exhibition Mirror Image at the National Gallery, London, Jonathan Miller discusses these puzzling questions and investigates the pictorial representation of reflection - 'sheen, shine, glimmer and gleam' - through a wonderfully varied selection of paintings and photographs, covering nine centuries, drawn from the National Gallery and other international collections.

Genres: Art

224 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1998

About the author

Sir Jonathan Wolfe Miller CBE was a British theatre and opera director, author, television presenter, humorist and sculptor. Trained as a physician in the late 1950s, he first came to prominence in the 1960s with his role in the comedy review Beyond the Fringe with fellow writers and performers Peter Cook, Dudley Moore and Alan Bennett. Despite having seen few operas and not knowing how to read music, he began stage-directing them in the 1970s and became one of the world's leading opera directors with several classic productions to his credit. His best-known production is probably his 1982 "Mafia"-styled Rigoletto set in 1950s Little Italy, Manhattan. He was also a well-known television personality and familiar public intellectual in the UK and US.

Reviews

[Snail in Danger (Sid) Nicolaides · Rating 3 out of 5]

So, long before reflectoporn on EBay and selfies on Facebook, artists used mirrors and other reflective surfaces to paint self portraits and create other interesting visual effects. This reproduces the well-known Arnolfini Marriage and The Moneychanger and His Wife, but also less famous paintings as well as photographs by Diane Arbus, André Kertész, Clementina Hawarden, and others.

The reason that there was so little commentary about the art as art, rather than as a depiction of natural and perceptual phenomena, became clear when I got to the author's bio and saw that he was a physician.

It did some things very well — I could count the number of awkward mid-sentence page breaks on one hand. But it was somewhat difficult to identify the works reproduced by title and author — putting this info in small vertical text is an efficient use of space, but a little hard to read.

(The following is not actually a spoiler — just some journal articles cited in the bibliography that I might look up sometime.)


The Tools of Venus, Renaissance Studies, 11(3), 1997. (C. Santore)

Light, Form, and Texture in XVth Century Painting, J of the Royal Society of Arts, 1964, 862-49

The Mystical Window in Paintings of the Salvator Mundi, Gazette des Beaux Arts, VI / LVI, 1960. auth C. Gottlieb

The Difference Between Right and Left, American Philosophical Quarterly, VII (3), 1970, 175-191.

Why do mirrors reverse right/left but not up/down, J Philosophy, LXXI, 1974.

Self-Perception as a Foundation for Self-Knowledge, Psychological Inquiry, 3(2), 1992, 134-6.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was fascinating. It was published to coincide with a British exhibit called "Mirror Image." Although I didn't know a lot of the artistic terminology used (art history 101 was a long time ago), I still enjoyed the book. The artwork featured in it was great and the commentary very helpful.

[Stephen W · Rating 1 out of 5]

Coffee table art