Art Mirrors Art

WordPress warns me that this whole #Art_Mirrors_Art project is 14 (!) years old; in reality, it’s much older, of course, I only transferred it to this blogging platform at that time. Before that, AMA had already enjoyed two or three glorious infancy years on LiveJournal (a big name back then)

TIL Yuri (百合, literally "lily") #art_mirrors_art (of course). Also #appropriation (or 'Rokeby Venus' in this case)

An attempt to enact the famous quote by Voltaire, "Ce corps qui s'appelait et qui s'appelle encore le Saint-Empire romain n'était en aucune manière ni saint, ni romain, ni empire", in a contemporary Venn Diagram format. A joke; more about the VD popularity than of the HRE

Ah, the first contemporary #art_mirrors_art work that I found on BSky! Kudos etc

As a result, Leda laid an egg from which later hatched Helen (who will become famous as Helen of Troy). We see Hermes (center), the messenger god, with his caduceus, who delivers the divine egg to Leda (right) and Tyndareus, Leda’s mortal husband (left).

Bronze Etruscan mirror (c. 4th–3rd century BCE) from the Guarnacci Museum in Volterra, Italy. The engraved scene is know as Hermes and the Egg of Destiny.

According to the legend, Zeus, disguised as a swan, seduced (or if you follow a feminist reading, raped) Leda, the queen of Sparta.

I also don’t recall seeing any single model with such long red hair, very uncharacteristic for Bonnard. The painting (~40 x 60 cm, oil on canvas) was estimated at 350,000 euros and sold for six hundred. The type of mirrors placed above a fireplace was called 'trumeau' in French, not 'glace'.

This little-known early ‘mirror painting’ by Pierre Bonnard (Femme à demi-nue, ou Nu se coiffant devant la glace (1915) was recently auctioned by Christie’s. I've studied Bonnard’s work (see Amber Intimism of Bonnard artmirrorsart.wordpress.com/2015/12/18/b...) but don’t recall seeing this artwork.

Steven Klein - Gisele Bündchen for Balenciaga (2014)

Simon de Vos and Workshop - The Immaculate Conception (1636) and the detail with putti holding a mirror, one of Madonna’s attributes (Speculum sine macula):

In a rare twist, the maid this time manages to avert her eyes, successfully resisting the ominous pull of the mirror - an unusual moment of resistance against the forces of temptation and illusion that typically dominate Bosch’s visions.

The scene with a mirror is a curious fusion of all three known mirror motifs by Bosch. We see the familiar figure of the naked maid and the monstrous creatures surrounding her, yet here it is not the monster who holds the mirror, but a grotesque nun-like figure.

Follower of Hieronymus Bosch - The Last Judgement (c.1520s) #TEFAF'25

According to modern developmental psychology, children start recognizing themselves in a mirror between 18 and 24 months of age. Researchers often use the 'mirror test': if when looking in a mirror, the child touches himself, not mirror, it points to the formation of self-awareness

Hortense Haudebourt-Lescot - Un enfant se regardant dans un miroir (c.1821) Lescot was a French painter, but this work, like many others, depicts the life and costumes of Italian peasants, reflecting (sic) the many years she spent in Italy.

And yes, just like in Bellini’s work, the reflection of the hand in the large mirror is also distorted here.

I’ve never seen mirrors of that size and shape in mid-19th-century artworks. I’m not even sure they had the technical means to produce such mirrors at the time. Also, like its more famous look-alike by Bellini, this isn’t Giovane donna nuda allo specchio - it’s Donna nuda tra *due specchi*

Francesco Oliva - Reclining nude with a mirror (1858)
The painting was presented at TEFAF 2025 by the Berardi Gallery from Rome. I have many questions about this work - starting from its over-restored condition and incorrect optics that we see depicted here - but finishing with mirrors, of course:

Following the iconographic tradition, Madonna is depicted with her attributes, including a mirror, in this case held by putti, with small fragments of mother-of-pearl forming its frame

The Immaculate Conception, attributed to Miguel González, 17th-century Mexican painter, was one of four panels offered for sale at #TEFAF'25. It is painted in oil with inlays of mother-of-pearl on wood, ~ 45 x 60 cm

This woodblock by Shinsui Itō (伊東 深水) is known as Mayuzumi (眉墨) - which literally means ‘eyebrow ink’, or 'eyebrow blackening pencil’ (c.1928) #TEFAF'25

Pierrot in the center is the painter himself, and the sleeping figure on the left is his pupil, the German painter Anselm Feuerbach. The woman is Alice Ozy, the courtesan and frequent model who often joined their private gatherings at the famed Paris restaurant La Maison d’Or.

Thomas Couture - The Supper after the Masked Ball (c.1857) #TEFAF'25 This is not a painting itself but a wood-block printed wallpaper (185 x 235 cm), designed after Couture’s composition and printed by Desfossé & Karth company in Paris.

Jan 'Willy' Sluiter - Dancing Hall Hotel Adlon, Berlin (c. 1926) #TEFAF'25 Apparently, Sluiter was a prominent Dutch painter famous for his depictions of high society. Never heard of him before, I should look for more of his 'art mirrors'

I learned about this 'Toilette' by Max Pechstein not long ago (when I was working on a piece about Kirchner's mirrors) and was shocked (pleasantly) to see it with my own eyes at TEFAF'25

Below is one of those unexpected gems you can only experience by being at the event and seeing how visitors interact with the works (we all know that art is always interactive - we look at the paintings, and the paintings look at us.) Had the woman mirrored the gesture of the figure deliberately?

This is a more recent work by Pistoletto, c. 2010, called Partitura in Nero - E (or Ritratto di Eunmi Lee). I didn’t realize that his mirror figures can also cast shadows - into 'our' world. In hindsight, it is, Yes, but of course! But it wasn’t so obvious, until I saw it on the picture.

This one is called Ritratto Sigg. Lerre (Portrait of Mr. Lerre). It’s hard to be certain about the date, he used the same, or very similar, silkscreens on mirror surfaces (actually polished stainless steel sheets) over many years. This image was in production from 1962 (!) until at least 1987.

What was unusual is to spot many different ‘mirrors’ by Michelangelo Pistoletto at #TEFAF'25 - I counted at least five, and likely missed a few more. He’s been prolific with this mirror works, but I didn’t realized just how many of them are on the market.

It’s impossible to imagine today’s major art fairs without at least one of Anish Kapoor’s “mirrors.” They’ve become omnipresent, and their number only seems to grow with years. This one, Dark Lime to Clear, is very recent, c. 2024. #TEFAF'25