Focus on Lady at her Dressing Table and discuss the Mirrors in art.
References to mirrors have been dated from 6200 to 4500 BCE. The earliest metal mirrors found in Mesopotamia are dated circa 4,000 BCE. Though archeologists discovered what are considered the first man-made mirrors in the burials of the Badari culture (5,000 – 4,500 BCE).The theme of depicting mirrors in art dates back to at least the art of ancient Egypt (e.g., Queen Kawit at her toilet, a relief found in a sarcophagus at Deir el-Bahri temple complex) in passing through the classical period of ancient Greece.The mirror is the central device in a wide variety of European paintings:Titian's Venus with a Mirror
Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait
Édouard Manet's A Bar at the Folies-Bergère
Pablo Picasso's Girl before a Mirror (1932)
Diego Velázquez's Las Meninas, wherein the viewer is both the watcher (of a self-portrait in progress) and the watched, and the many adaptations of that painting in various media
Veronese's Venus with a MirrorMirrors have been used by artists to create works and hone their craft:Filippo Brunelleschi discovered linear perspective with the help of the mirror.
Leonardo da Vinci called the mirror the "master of painters". He recommended, "When you wish to see whether your whole picture accords with what you have portrayed from nature take a mirror and reflect the actual object in it. Compare what is reflected with your painting and carefully consider whether both likenesses of the subject correspond, particularly in regard to the mirror."
Many self-portraits are made possible through the use of mirrors:
Mirrors were used by Dürer, Frida Kahlo, Rembrandt, Van Gogh and others, to make self-portraits.
M. C. Escher used special shapes of mirrors in order to achieve a much more complete view of his surroundings than by direct observation in Hand with Reflecting Sphere (also known as Self-Portrait in Spherical Mirror).
Arnolfini Portrait Titian Las Meninas classical period of ancient Greece Leonardo da Vinci Filippo Brunelleschi Jan van Eyck Dürer self-portraits Pablo Picasso A Bar at the Folies-Bergère Frida Kahlo Veronese Rembrandt Venus with a Mirror Girl before a Mirror Diego Velázquez Édouard Manet Van Gogh Hand with Reflecting Sphere M. C. Escher art of ancient Egypt