The Mirror of Art: Painting and Reflection in Early Modern Visual Culture

One of the key pictorial developments of Renaissance art was a conceptualisation of painting as a mirror reflection of the visible world. The idea of painting as specular was argued in Renaissance art theory, demonstrated in art practice, and represented in painting itself. Both within the artist's workshop and within pictorial representation, the mirror-image became the instrument, the emblem, and the conceptual definition of what a painting was.In this volume, Genevieve Warwick brings a dual focus to the topic through an exploration of the early modern elision of the picture plane with the mirror – image. She considers the specular configuration of Renaissance painting from various thematic points of view to offer a fully interdisciplinary analysis of the mirror analogy that pervaded not only art theory and art-making, but also the larger cultural spheres of philosophy, letters, and scientific observation. Warwick's volume recasts our understanding of the inter-visual relationships between disciplines, and their consequences for a specular definition of Renaissance painting. Cover Half-title Title page Imprints page Epigraph Dedication Table of Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction: The Mirror of Narcissus Notes Chapter 1 Halls of Mirrors I. Versailles The Mirror of Princes Mirror Manufactures Speculum II. The Art of the Mirror The Mirror Artefact The Myrrour of the World Psyche’s Mirror Halls of Mirrors Notes Chapter 2 Armorial Mirrors Schilderkunst Brunelleschi’s Mirror The Goldsmith’s Art Armorial Arts Speculum sine macula Achilles’ Shield Painting by fides Notes Chapter 3 The Artist’s Mirror The Optical Mirror ‘How the mirror is the master of painters’ The Practice of Mimesis Fatto al specchio Salón de los Espejos Notes Chapter 4 Specular Sciences Natural Magic Chambers of Vision Anamorphosis Theatrum catoptricum Perspectyfkas Notes Chapter 5 The Mirrors of Venus The Toilet of Venus Pictura poesis Veneralia Arts of Love Domestic Arts Marian Mirrors Vanitas Valiant Mirrors Mirrors of Prudence Notes Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index