The Creation, Development and Use of Mirrors in Northern Renaissance Art - Essay Example

The creation, development and use of mirrors in Northern Renaissance art The mirror has fascinated artists since ical times. The opportunities it offers as both a literal reflection of life and also a symbolic metaphor for more profound religious reflection, see it recur as a constant motif from ancient paintings, through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance to the modern day. However, the mirror takes on a particular significance during the Renaissance. In this period concerned with perspective, the mirror offers another intriguing way to incorporate optical tricks into art. This essay will consider the role of the mirror in three paintings; Jan van Eycks Arnolfini Portrait, Hans Memlings Virgin and Child and Maarten van Niewenhove, and Petrus Christus Goldsmith in His Shop. All three paintings depict mirrors and all three use the mirror to manipulate both what the viewer sees and also the role the viewer plays within the painting. The aim of this essay, therefore, is to explore in each painting how this manipulation takes place and the purposes of the artist in undertaking such a manipulation. The reflection has long fascinated man-kind, and stories such as the terrible fate of Narcissus, hopelessly in love with his own image, proliferate in ancient literature. From the earliest Greek vases there are depictions of people holding mirrors, which would have consisted of highly polished metal or stone. However, by the time of the Renaissance, glass-working had reached the level of sophistication to allow small, glass mirrors to be produced. The production of clear glass was underway in Venice by the early fifteenth century, creating mirrors which provided a clear reflection with little distortion to the facial features. It is just such mirrors, of humble proportions due to the difficulty of blowing glass large enough to make a bigger surface area, which appear in the painting which will be considered in this essay. Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait, depicting Giovanni di Nicolao Arnolfini and his wife, dates from 1434. It is painted in oils on an oak panel. The painting is immediately striking for the sense of realism that it creates. This is due to two factors; light and perspective. The two figures are depicted centre-left and centre-right of the painting. The faces of both figures are illuminated by the light which streams in from a window on the left of the painting. The chiaroscuro of their clothing gives a sense of depth and richness to the material, while the feet of Arnolfini and the ceiling of the room are in darkness, framing the two figures. A pair of shoes cast thoughtlessly into the bottom left corner of the painting are bathed in light entering from another, unseen, window. The well-lit face of Arnolfini is also further illuminated by its contrast with the deep black of his hat. Light is, therefore, used to great effect in order to give a sense of depth to the work. The other great success of this painting lies in its use of perspective. The slant of the window on the left of the painting matches that of the bed on the right, while the floorboards add the effect of drawing the eye to the back of the picture. Even the two figures themselves draw the eye to the back of the room, since placed between their illuminated faces above and their linked hands below, is the mirror. Although not well lit, and with a reflection which is at first hard to distinguish, the entire painting works to focus the viewer’s eyes on this mirror. This potentially inconspicuous item therefore becomes the visual centrepiece of the painting. This is no coincidence, and by setting his painting up in this way, van Eyke is urging the viewer to take notice of his use of perspective. Belsay comments that ‘van Eyke arrived by independent means at something very similar to fixed point perspective. In the Arnolfini portrait the orthogonals do not quite converge on a single vanishing point, thought the composition lines have the effect of leading the eye to the gleaming mirror on the back wall’.1 The achievement, therefore, is notable. However, van Eyke’s use of perspective does not end here. Indeed, it is in this very use of perspective that the mirror comes into its own as a tool of manipulation used by the artist. By including the reflection of the newly weds, van Eyke moves the painting out of its usual confines and allow the viewer to consider the picture in 360°. Belsay remarks that ‘van Eyke has brilliantly solved one of the problems of perspective painting, its confinement to what can be seen from a specified point of view. The mirror behind the couple permits vision through 360 degrees, its convex surface reflecting the room back at us in detail from the opposite side.’2 This is a revolutionary use of the mirror in Northern Renaissance art. For the first time, the viewer is able to see what is in front of the couple, where the viewer usually stands. The mirror shows the wedding party looking at the couple, and although the convex mirror distorts the sides of the picture, the couple remain as perfectly represented, albeit in miniature, as in the main painting. Such is van Eyke’s precision in designing the perspective of his painting that the viewer is able to see ‘outside’ the painting, to where the couple are themselves looking. This shift in viewing positions is crucial to the success of the painting, and it is the mirror that allows this shift to happen. Petrus Christus, apprentice to van Eyke, creates a very similar painting in his Goldsmith in His Shop. As Hagan and Hagan comment, ‘since it is probable that Petrus Christus was apprenticed to the older master [i.e. van Eyke] , the mirror in the present painting may be a quotation’.3 Indeed, there are striking similarities between the two paintings. The perspective, debated in van Eyke’s work, had developed in this painting. Elkins comments that ‘it had been long known that the inception of perspective in the Low Countries can be credited to Petrus Christus’4 and there is certainly a strong sense, if not yet a perfected one5, of perspective in this painting. Executed in the same medium as van Eyke’s work, oil on wood, the painting almost certainly pays homage to this earlier work. The seated Goldsmith is the focus of the painting and the artist constructs the lines in the painting in order to draw the eye to this figure. The material on the desk on the left of the painting hems the Goldsmith in on one side, while the mirror performs the same role on the right. Meanwhile, the Goldsmith is framed top left by the two faces of his clients, matched on the upper right by the shelves. The diagonal sloping arm of the female client helps to reinforce this focus on the Goldsmith. However, the female client’s outstretched arm, while directing the viewer’s gaze towards the Goldsmith, also acts to cut across the repeatedly reinforced horizontal lines of the painting (present in the table, the shelving and the window), indicating the mirror which has, until now, remained surreptitiously in the corner of the painting. The arm of the Goldsmith, in juxtaposition with the scales which he is holding, form an arrow which reinforces this shift in perspective. There is, therefore, a very different approach present in this picture. While van Dyke immediately draws attention to the mirror in his painting, Petrus Christus draws the object in, but in a secondary moment. However, the mirror is used to the same effect. As Hagan and Hagan explain, ‘the trick with the mirror allows the artist to present a view taken simultaneously from within and without, enabling him to show what lies in front of and behind the imaginary spectator. The problem of spatial organisation seems to have fascinated him’.6 The mirror is used to trick perspective once again, allowing the viewer to see behind themselves and onto the street outside the shop. The final painting, Hans Memlings Virgin and Child and Maarten van Niewenhove, is strikingly different from the first two paintings. Not only is it, in fact, two portraits, but it also draws little attention to the mirror present within it. Rather than constructing the picture to lead the eye towards it, the mirror is partially obscured in darkness behind the Virgin’s right shoulder. What is particularly intriguing about this mirror is that it was, in fact, added after the painting was completed. As Savarese et al. explain, ‘it was recently discovered that the mirror was not part of the painting’s initial design, but instead added later by Memling’.7 At a basic level, the mirror performs the same role as in Jan van Eyke and Petrus Christus’ paintings. It is especially similar to van Eyke’s mirror since, given that it is flat against the wall, it reflects the whole room back to the viewer. However, rather than one figure, the Virgin, as might be expected, there are in fact two figures present in the reflection. Savarese et al. suggest that this might be because the painting, painted on two connected panels, is in fact designed to be set at an angle to include van Niewenhove in the picture.8 This theory, however, does not adequately explain the late arrival of the mirror. It is, therefore, necessary to consider the original purpose of the painting. It is, in fact, a diptych and so the strong religious element in the painting must be considered as a potential explanation for the addition. Indeed, Ribberos et al. make the following comment about the mirror; ‘the mirror has a symbolic meaning in relation to the subject of the painting…since the mirror shows both Mary and the donor, it may proclaim that van Nieuwenhove considers the Virgin, who is the mirror of God, as his mirror’.9 According to this argument, the reflection skilfully ties Niewenhove and the Virgin together in the mirror, even though they appear on two different panels in the painting. The artist, therefore, uses the mirror as a grand religious metaphor within the painting. It is clear, therefore, that each artist attempts to manipulate the perspective which the viewer has when considering the painting. However, it is also necessary to consider the effect that this manipulation has on the relationship between the viewer and the work. In all the paintings, the viewer is no longer in a comfortable space outside the painting looking in but rather, through the disrupting effect of the mirror, the viewer, or at least the space which the viewer occupies, can suddenly be seen within the painting. This has a significant effect on the painting-viewer relationship, and the nature of this effect is different in each of the paintings considered. In Petrus Chritus’ work, the mirror invites the viewer further into the painting. By positioning it at an angle to the viewer, they are encouraged to consider the street outside and the people passing by the shop window. There is a sense of collusion between the passers-by looking in from the street and the viewer looking in from outside. In van Eyke’s work, by contrast, the mirror becomes a direct challenge to the viewer. By placing the mirror directly in front of the viewer, the viewer therefore expects to see themselves reflected back. However, they are surprisingly absent from the reflection. The wedding party and the newly married couple can be seen but there is no space for the person looking at the painting. Van Eyke deliberately excluded the viewer and so a double trick of perspective is played. The artist at once allows the viewer to see beyond the paintings limits, but at the same time removes the viewer from their position of spectator. As Belsay sums up, ‘the completeness of the image has the explicit effect of eliding the body of the spectator.’10 However, the viewer’s relationship is most disrupted in Memling’s work. As Rothstein explains, ‘the painting generates an undeniable conflict between on the one hand, its insistence on spatial continuity with the area before it and, on the other hand, its clear disengagement from, / even wilful redefinition of, the particulars of that area.’11 Given that the painting runs across two panels, there is already a tension created by the artist associated with the spatial relationship of the two figures. The viewer’s role within the painting is, therefore, already under considerable tension and the mirror only acts to confuse it further. The reflection remains as an enigma. It is neither a total denial of the presence of the observer nor a confirmation of it. The mirror, it is clear, plays a key role in the dynamics of these paintings. All the artists use it in order to disrupt the carefully considered perspective which they create within their works, expanding the limits of what appears on the panels as they do so. They all take the viewer by surprise, allowing them to see around corners or even behind themselves in an exciting and innovative use of the reflective abilities of the mirror. However, with this liberation comes a challenge for the viewer. Their position of silent observer is attacked. Instead they are, on the one hand, invited further into the painting that they have, until now, merely passively observed. Alternatively, and certainly more alarmingly, they are made to vanish entirely. This is perhaps the greatest trick of these paintings – that they use a tool which is celebrated for re-creating reality, to disrupt this very same reality and, crucially, to obscure it. Bibliography Ames-Lewis, Francis, and Mary Ruth Rogers, eds. Concepts of Beauty in the Renaissance. London: Ashgate, 1998 Belsay, Catherine. Culture and the Real: Theorizing Cultural Criticism. Oxford: Routledge, 2005 Cool, Delphine, Sue Foister, and Sue Jones, eds. Investigating Jan Van Eyke. London: Brepols, 2000 De Dos, Dirk. Hans Memling: The Complete Works. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1994 Delumeau, Jean, Katharine Jewett and Sabine Melchior-Bonnet. The Mirror: A History. Oxford: Routledge, 2002 Elkins, James. “On the Arnolfini Painting and the Lucca Madonna: Did Jan van Eyke Have a Perspectival System?” The Art Bulletin 73.1 (March 1991): 53-62 Hagan, Rainer and Mary Rose Hagan. What Great Paintings Say. New York: Taschen, 2003 Hall, Edwin. The Arnolfini Betrothal: Medieval Marriage and the Enigma of Van Eyke’s Double Portrait. California: University of California Press, 1994 Harbison, Craig. The Mirror of the Artist: Northern Renaissance Art in its Historical Context. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1995 Pendergrast, Mark. Mirror Mirror: A History of the Human Love Affair with Reflection. New York: Basic Books, 2004 Ribberbos, Bernard, Henk van Veen, and Anne van Buren. Early Netherlandish Paintings. Amsterdam: Amsterdam Univerity Press, 2005 Rothstein, Bret Louis. Sight and Spirituality in Early Netherlandish Painting. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005 Savarese, Silvio, Ron Spronk, David G. Stork, and Andrey DelPozo. “Reflections on praxis and facture in a devotional portrait diptych: A computer analysis of the mirror in Hans Memling’s Virgin and Child and Maarten van Nieuwenhove.” 2005 Shuger, Deborah. “The “I” of the beholder: Renaissance Mirrors and the Reflexive Mind”. In Renaissance Culture and the Everyday, edited by Patricia Fumerton and Simon Hunt . Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania University Press, 1998 Upton, Joel Morgan. Petrus Christus: His Place in Fifteenth-Century Flemish Painting. Pennsylvania: Penn State University, 1990 Zucker, Wolfgang M. “Reflections on Reflections.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 20.3 (Spring 1962): 239-250 Read More