Two months ago or so I wrote about an interesting collection, of the paintings with mirrors (Art of Mirroring Art); I found it rather peculiar back then, this whole business of ‘art mirrors’. But little I knew that I would become so deeply interested in this topic, and my own collection will soon exceed 1000 (a thousand!) works!
Those were two excellent months! I was never able to spend any significant time on this new ‘hobby’, nor my efforts were systematic in any sense. After I have swallowed a few large collections of ‘art mirrors’ (most notable was of *Huismus, but I also found a few blogs postings with interesting sets of art-works), my own catch was in the area of 350+ items, including the most famous blockbusters, like the Rokeby Venus by Velazquez or Bellini’s ‘two-mirror’ girl.
The rest was generated by a different process, of a slow crawling through an entire art history, sifting both favorite and entirely new artists, bumping into amazingly interesting pieces at the art auctions, scanning old art books, bumping into the works in the museums and gallerias. This precess was full of serendipity and surprises, which made it even more pleasant. But more frustrating and painful too; like in the saying ‘the more you know, the better you understand how little you know’ I now understand that all these works are merely a scratch on a surface, and that they represent just a tiny fraction of the whole corpus of works.
Nevertheless, the journey let me to revisit and (re)discover so many interesting pages, not only of the art history per se, but also history in general, and history of technology, literature, drama. But also sociology, psychology, even philosophy. I feel I am semi-pregnant with a book-size a text about all these discoveries, and already scribbled a few versions of a possible plot. I am afraid, of course, that no publisher would venture into such a nightmare from a copyright point of view, but than again, who know?
And yes, the link to the ‘treasure box’: entire collection is still available at the same address – Art Mirrors Art.
