In the long development of art history, mirrors have been given a lot of meaning by artists (Greed for power, the desire for human nature …), in many artworks, mirrors are given important connotations. The artist expressed the character relationship and ideological orientation in the picture at that time through the expression of mirror reflection.
In Diego Velázquez’s artwork , The artist arranges the viewing perspectives and so on in the picture space, the use of mirrors to make a rich picture level, its peculiar character relationship from the painting itself we see the painter himself is painting a large painting, At the bottom of the painting is the most mysterious and interesting thing in the whole painting — a mirror, In the mirror we could faintly see that there are two people-the King Philip IV and the Queen Mariana; They’re standing in the front of the painting, and the first view becomes them; The whole painting is just like they recorded what they saw in their eyes; The reflection of the mirror makes them the only reasonable spectators. Due to the existence of this mirror, the original relationship between the painter and the painted is confused and the subjectivity of the original painting is weakened. In my opinion, the artist shows his social climbing of the royal family and the admiration of the upper class in this way.
Not only the painting< Las Meninas >, after I’ve seeing many art works, I found the common point by artists using mirrors, that artists have enjoyed using mirrors in art to express their desire for humanity.
127 our experts are availableright now
The application and expression of mirror in contemporary art works
In the art history, artists gain the inspiration from mirror, which the inspiration is graceful and deeply reflected, such as the dual spaces made of the mirror, multiple perspectives and the concealment and appearance of the objectives’ image…The mirror creates a wide variety of possibilities for the image. And in contemporary installation art, the mirror is also one of the most important forms of expression;
The physical properties of a mirror allow light to reflect and refract in different circumstances, a disordered feeling of space is caused to the audience, with lights and mirrors, the viewer’s perception of spatial dimension is gone; such as: Lucas Samaras, room No.2,1996; Kusama Yayoi, infinity mirrored room, Dan Graham, present continuouspast,1974…
One mirror could reflect the image of real world, two mirrors placed on opposite sides could reproduce the space between them indefinitely, creating a visual illusion of infinite extension in opposite direction, to express the main idea – infinite human desire. In the artwork collection, Grace expressed the infinite Desire of human nature by the mirrors, the artwork lead the audience to make consideration on themselves, the image of themselves are reflected by the mirror. Grace creates five different artworks which the mirror lay face by face, and grace arranges five carries between two mirrors, which are lions and peacock furthers represent ,medusa represent ,flower-de-luce represents,crow represent ,and gas mask represent to present five sins, using these five works of art to explain and express the five original SINS of human nature.
In addition, the physical properties of the two-way mirror–1: when the external light intensity of the installation is stronger – reflecting the viewer itself – implies the original self or faces the side bound by social norms; 2: when the light intensity inside the device is stronger, it forms an unlimited copy space with the second mirror and reflects each of the lion’s mouth placed in front of the mirror with peacock feathers, medusa, irises, crows, represents the fly’s gas mask. Grace has expressed the infinite desires inside people by using the duplicative mirror expression and the reflection characteristic of two-side mirror. I hoped people could deeply insight themselves from looking directly at themselves, know the deep heart in themselves and control their desires.
