On Reflection - Hardcover

Miller, Jonathan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300077130 ISBN 13: 9780300077131

Publisher: National Gallery London, 1998

Synopsis

How can we tell the difference between a reflection and the real thing? How does a reflection betray its identity? Why is it that when we look at a mirror we can see either our reflection or the mirror but not both at the same time? How and when do we learn to recognise our own reflection? What does a reflective surface look like and how can we distinguish it from a non-reflective surface? Why is it that certain paintings may be turned upside down and still be visually acceptable? How are the various qualities of reflection represented in art - from the diffuse sheen of burnished copper to the realism of silvered glass?
In this innovative book, published to accompany the exhibition Mirror Image at the National Gallery, London, Jonathan Miller discusses these puzzling questions and investigates the pictorial representation of reflection - 'sheen, shine, glimmer and gleam' - through a wonderfully varied selection of paintings and photographs, covering nine centuries, drawn from the National Gallery and other international collections.

About this title

Review:

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.

About the Author:

Jonathan Miller has held appointments in the History of Medicine at the Wellcome Institute and a Leverhulme Fellowship in Cognitive Science at the University of Sussex. He has delivered the Clark Lectures at Trinity College, Cambridge and the T. S. Eliot Lectures at the University of Kent. He is an Honorary Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, an Honorary Doctor of Literature at the University of Cambridge and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians at London and Edinburgh.

About this edition

• Publisher: National Gallery London
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0300077130
• ISBN 13: 9780300077131
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224