Mirrors in Painting: Van Eyck, Velazquez, Manet, Escher
By Rocco (Roi) Ramon - licensed architect, founder of Studio Yabaye
A painting has one viewpoint. A mirror placed inside the picture adds a second one: it shows the part of the room that lies behind the painter, to the side of the frame, or in the position of the viewer. Painters have used this device since at least 1434. The mirrors in these pictures fall into three optical types - convex, plane and spherical. Each follows a rule that can be checked against the picture.
I build kaleidoscopes, which are instruments made of plane mirrors, and as an architect I read a drawing by asking where the eye stands. This article applies that question to six well-known works. For each it states what the mirror shows and what the law of reflection predicts.
Why the early painted mirrors are convex
A convex mirror bulges toward the viewer. Light rays that strike it are reflected outward in a fan, so the eye receives rays from a much wider angle than a flat mirror of the same diameter can deliver. The image is upright, reduced, and compressed more strongly toward the rim, where straight lines appear curved.
Manufacture also played a part. According to British Glass, the method of backing a flat glass plate with a thin tin-mercury amalgam was developed by Venetian artisans during the 16th century - about a hundred years after Van Eyck painted his convex mirror.
Jan van Eyck, The Arnolfini Portrait (1434)
Location: National Gallery, London (NG186). Oil on wood, probably oak, 82.2 x 60 cm.
A convex mirror hangs on the back wall, between the two standing figures. Its disc shows the room from the opposite side, with the couple seen from behind. The National Gallery describes two men in the reflection, one in red and one in blue, coming in through a door on the viewer's side of the room; the first seems to be raising his left arm. On the wall above the mirror the painter wrote "Johannes de Eyck fuit hic. 1434" - Jan van Eyck was here. 1434.
The optics: the picture is consistent with a convex mirror. A whole room and four figures fit in a small disc. A flat mirror of that size, seen from the painter's position, would show only a narrow patch of the opposite wall.
Parmigianino, Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror (c. 1523/1524)
Location: Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (Gemaeldegalerie, 286). Oil on a curved wood panel, 24.4 cm in diameter.
Here the whole picture is the mirror image. Parmigianino painted on a convex panel, so the support repeats the shape of the reflector.
The optics: a convex mirror reduces objects according to their distance, and it does so steeply at close range. The hand, held near the surface, is drawn larger than the face behind it.
Diego Velazquez, Las Meninas (1656)
Location: Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.
A plane mirror hangs on the rear wall of the room. It shows the upper bodies of King Philip IV and Queen Mariana, who appear nowhere else in the picture.
What a plane mirror would show: a flat mirror forms an image as far behind the glass as the object stands in front of it, at the same size. An eye directly in front of a flat mirror sees itself. An eye to one side sees what lies on the other side, at an equal angle.
The debate: the common reading is that the king and queen stand where the viewer stands, and the mirror shows them. A second reading starts from the perspective construction. The receding lines of the room meet near the figure in the far doorway, to the right of the mirror, so the viewpoint is not directly opposite the glass. On that basis Joel Snyder and Ted Cohen argued in 1980 that the mirror reflects the front of the large canvas at the left, which the viewer cannot see. The question is not settled.
Edouard Manet, A Bar at the Folies-Bergere (1882)
Location: The Courtauld Gallery, London. Oil on canvas.
A barmaid faces the viewer across a counter. Behind her, a gold-framed mirror reflects the interior of the hall and its crowd.
What a plane mirror would show: if the mirror is parallel to the counter and the viewer stands directly in front of the barmaid, her reflection lies directly behind her, mostly hidden by her own body.
Where the painting departs: her reflection is displaced to the right, and it shows her with a male customer who does not appear in front of the bar.
The debate: The Courtauld describes Manet as ignoring normal perspective. Malcolm Park, in a dissertation completed at the University of New South Wales in 2001, argued the opposite: the scene can be understood as constructed from a viewpoint offset to the right, with the customer standing outside the painter's field of vision. The Getty published a photographic reconstruction based on his research. The "impossible" reflection is a contested claim, not an established fact.
M. C. Escher: two lithographs with a sphere
Still Life with Spherical Mirror (1934) and Hand with Reflecting Sphere (1935) are lithographs, so each exists in several impressions. The National Gallery of Art, Washington, holds both (1975.18.1 and 1964.8.743).
Reflection on a sphere: a sphere is a convex mirror carried to its limit. Seen from one point, the visible half of the ball reflects almost the entire surroundings - walls, floor, ceiling and the space behind the observer.
One consequence is exact. The ray that leaves the eye and returns to it strikes the sphere at a right angle, at the point of the ball nearest the eye. The observer's own eye is therefore always at the centre of the reflected disc. In Hand with Reflecting Sphere, the head of the man holding the ball sits at its centre, and the room wraps around it. In the 1934 still life the sphere is a reflective flask standing on a book, and its surface shows a man at a desk in a room with tall windows.
From one mirror to several: the kaleidoscope
In every work above, a single mirror adds a second viewpoint to a fixed picture. A kaleidoscope uses mirrors for a different purpose. Two or more plane mirrors are set at a fixed angle along the length of a tube. Each mirror reflects the object and also reflects the image formed by the other mirror. The object is multiplied into sectors that alternate between direct and reversed and join into a symmetrical whole. The rule is set out in how a kaleidoscope works.
Two conditions are shared with the paintings. First, the result depends on where the eye is. A kaleidoscope image is symmetrical only with the eye at the end of the mirrors. Second, the mirrors are plane. A convex surface would reduce and bend each repetition, and the sectors would not join.
What to check in a painted mirror
Find the viewpoint. Follow the receding lines of the floor or ceiling to the point where they meet. The painter's eye is opposite that point.
Predict the reflection. For a plane mirror, apply the equal-angle rule from that viewpoint.
Compare. Note where the painted reflection differs from the prediction, and who attributes the difference to intent.
Checklist
Mirror type identified: convex, plane or spherical.
Convex mirror: image upright, reduced, curved toward the rim.
Plane mirror: image the same size, at equal distance behind the glass.
Sphere: the observer's eye at the centre of the reflected disc.
FAQ
What does the mirror in the Arnolfini Portrait show?
The convex mirror on the back wall of Jan van Eyck's 1434 painting in the National Gallery, London, shows the room from the opposite side: the couple from behind and, according to the gallery, two men coming in through a door. The inscription "Johannes de Eyck fuit hic. 1434" is written above it.
Why are the mirrors in early Netherlandish paintings convex?
A convex mirror reflects a wide angle of view into a small, upright, reduced image, so a small disc can show a whole room. Flat glass mirrors came later: according to British Glass, Venetian artisans developed the tin-mercury amalgam backing for flat glass plates during the 16th century.
Who is reflected in the mirror in Las Meninas?
The plane mirror on the rear wall of Velazquez's Las Meninas (1656, Museo del Prado, Madrid) shows King Philip IV and Queen Mariana. The common reading places them in the viewer's position. A second reading, argued by Joel Snyder and Ted Cohen in 1980, holds that the mirror reflects the hidden canvas.
Is the reflection in Manet's A Bar at the Folies-Bergere impossible?
It is debated. The barmaid's reflection in the 1882 painting at The Courtauld Gallery, London, is displaced to the right. The Courtauld describes Manet as ignoring normal perspective. Malcolm Park's dissertation, completed in 2001, argued that the scene is consistent with a viewpoint offset to the right.
What does a reflecting sphere show in Escher's lithograph?
In Hand with Reflecting Sphere (1935), the ball reflects the hand, the man holding it and the room behind him. The observer's eye always appears at the centre of a reflecting sphere, because the ray returning to the eye strikes the surface at a right angle. The man's head sits at that centre.
How is a kaleidoscope different from a mirror in a painting?
A painted mirror is one reflecting surface that adds a second viewpoint to the picture. A kaleidoscope sets two or more plane mirrors at a fixed angle, so each mirror also reflects the other mirror's image. One fragment of the object is repeated in alternating direct and reversed sectors that join into a symmetrical figure.
About Studio Yabaye
Studio Yabaye builds kaleidoscopes and teleidoscopes with front-surface mirror systems in several configurations, in a brass tube, cut, fitted and hand-finished in the studio. The current range is at all products, and questions go through the contact page.
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