Description:
When we look into a mirror, we do not "see" the surface, we see only our reflection. But in a painting, our eye is drawn to the marked surface of the canvas, which creates the illusion of a reflection. Jonathan Miller's On Reflection, published to coincide with his show "Mirror Image" at London's National Gallery, is a dazzling investigation of artists as diverse as van Eyck, Dürer, Velázquez, Ingres, Helen Chadwick, and Robert Mapplethorpe. Miller explores the tricks and games by which painting and, more recently, photography create this illusion of reflection. The artistic representation of reflection has challenged artists for centuries, a problem particularly acute in Miller's most sustained example--the mirror. Drawing on studies of cognitive perception, On Reflection explains how we come to understand the difference between a reflection and "the real thing," and how vital reflections are in defining our own sense of identity. Miller's fascination with his subject comes across in bravura and original reassessments of the paintings he considers, and in the tricks that these works often play on the viewer. Lavishly and imaginatively illustrated, with wonderful inset captions that take the paintings apart in support of Miller's argument, this is one of the most enjoyable, accessible, and original books on art to have appeared in recent years.
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