Reflections on Reflections: The Pictorial Lessons of Mirrors in Vasari’s Lives.

This presentation explores how Vasari in his Lives conceptualized in different ways the "specchio": as a material object that had an important role to play in the construction of visual art; as a mechanism for thinking about the visual (primarily pictorial) and verbal representation of reality (mimesis); as a means for talking about how different visual artists engaged the Renaissance paragone between painting and sculpture; and as a metaphor for reflecting on the act of art historical reflection itself.  In the end, however, I will argue that what fundamentally interested Vasari is how an artist can reliably represent a mirror in a painting and what the artist in fact actually chooses to represent in the mirror counterfeited on the picture plane.  Simply put, “real” mirrors themselves and what’s actually reflected in them don’t interest Vasari; painted mirrors do.

Prior to the seminar there will be a Masterclass in which Douglas will lead a discussion of life-writing, autobiography, images and text on 'Vasari's Words'.

All are welcome.