On Reflection - Hardcover

Jonathan Miller

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1857092368 ISBN 13: 9781857092363

Publisher: Yale University Press, 1998

Synopsis

Physical description: 224p : ill (some col.), col. ports (cased) ; 29 cm. Bibliography: p214-215. Includes index. Subjects: Painting, European. Reflection (Optics) in art. Painting, Modern.

About this title

Review

Jonathan Miller has spent most of his prolific and distinguished career bringing the arts and science together to offer a richer and more complex understanding of the ways in which we come to "see" the world around us, and how art itself plays games with our perception of reality. On Reflection continues this preoccupation, and is an extraordinary exposition of how we see, and what we think we see, through an exploration of that most enigmatic of visual puzzles, the reflection.

As Miller points out, the artistic representation of reflection is based on a conundrum that has puzzled and challenged artists for centuries: how to represent the play of light which creates the effect of a reflection upon a flat surface using opaque material such as ink and paint. This problem is particularly acute in Miller's most sustained example--the mirror. When we look into a mirror, we do not "see" the surface, we only see our reflection. But in a painting our eye is drawn to the marked surface of the canvas, which creates the illusion of a reflection. Through a dazzling investigation of artists as diverse as Van Eyck, Durer, Velazquez, Ingres, Helen Chadwick and Robert Mapplethorpe, Miller explores the tricks and games by which painting and more recently photography create this illusion of reflection.

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 and enthusiasm for his subject come across in bravura and original reassessments of the paintings he considers, and in the tricks that these paintings often play on the viewer. Lavishly and imaginatively illustrated, with wonderful inset captions which 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. Essential for both connoisseurs and anyone interested in art history. --Jerry Brotton

Synopsis

In this volume, Jonathan Miller investigates the pictorial representation of sheen, shine, glimmer and gleam through a selection of paintings and photographs drawn from the National Gallery, London and other international collections. He describes our perceptual capacity to recognize real-life mirrors as well as those in pictures, a complex psychological process of which we are usually unaware. He also traces the ambivalent imagery of mirrors from neutral aids to representing the self as in Rembrandt's "Self Portrait" or Velasquez' "Rokeby Venus", through metaphors of either virtues or vices in allegorical paintings - such as Le Tournier's "Allegory of Justice and Vanity" and Otto Dix's "Woman Before a Mirror". The extent to which a surface reflects a recognizable image varies enormously. Jonathan Miller shows the full range, from the diffuse sheen of polished leather or burnished copper to the representational realism of silvered glass. The depiction of such variously reflective surfaces has challenged the virtuoisty of artists as diverse as Remrandt and Rockwell for more than 2000 years. A book intergrating science and art, it is designed to appeal to a wide readership of all ages. It provides a guide to reflecting on reflections aiming to enhance the reader's enjoyment both of everyday life and of visual art.

Edition details

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1857092368
• ISBN 13: 9781857092363
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224