From Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Wedding to Velázquez’s Las Meninas, how the skilful use of mirrors can add to a painting in mirror play.
Velázquez
When you see the same face in a mirror that you presume that figure can also see, despite that being optically impossible. An exploration.
Unusual self-portraits painted using mirrors by Courbet, Corinth, Bonnard, Gentileschi, Peeters, and Velázquez.
New series describing and illustrating how reflections have been painted in European and American art, from the early Renaissance to the 20th century.
Hephaistos or Vulcan in classical myth, cheated on by Aphrodite/Venus, and as creator of Pandora. In Bosch’s Last Judgement, and elsewhere.
Example paintings showing instantaneous, multi-image, multi-frame and polymythic narrative, from Poussin to Waterhouse.
A grand castle kitchen, the element fire, Vermeer’s milkmaid, a witch’s kitchen for Faust, a rotund cardinal tasting the sauce, and in a humble apartment in London.
The Roman goddess Minerva, the Greek statesman Solon, King Solomon, the three Magi, a ‘philosopher’ of Enlightenment, a scientist with a microscope, and the School of Athens.
From Rembrandt to Velázquez, Goya, Courbet and Fantin-Latour, reading group portraits can be complicated and demanding.
How Arachne came to a weaving contest against Minerva, but told the truth about gods and goddess, so was turned into a spider.
The Eclectic Light Company 