Description

• Title:
  A mirror in parergon function and as a place of reflection on the picture subject in an example of ‘The Arnolfini Marriage’ by Jan van Eyck
• Creator:
  Kłysz-Hackbarth, Joanna
• Description:
  For centuries, a mirror has been an important subject in discussions on art. The mutual relation of a picture and a mirror has been a general problem of an artistic image. The artists aware of a mirror’s values not only used it as a tool in picture creating process, but – what seems to occur more often – made it the picture’s essential element. About 1434 Jan van Eyck painted a mirror in ‘The Arnolfini Marriage’. Although it functions in the painting as an addition only – by its central position in the composition, distinguished by the means of a frame and its mimetic character – competes in attracting the viewer’s attention and changes the way of the work perception, gaining equivalent position with its principal subject. The mirror serves, therefore, as an exceptional parergon – it reveals spaces from beyond ergon, still remaining its part. The mirror’s specificity (parergon) in Jan van Eyck’s painting is based on the fact, that it is also a kind of the artist’s signature. It incorporates to the picture, what is not directly situated in it, i.e., the act of painting itself. Presence of the mirror in the picture makes the boundaries between the real world, the one presented in the image and the fiction seen in the mirror disappear. As a parergon the mirror becomes a ‘bridge’ to a complete understanding of the picture and a place for reflection on its creation.
• Object availability:
  free access
• Date:
  2014.06.04
• Type:
  info:eu-repo/semantics/article;
  info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
• Language:
  Polish
• Source:
  Sztuka i Kultura; Tom 1 (2013); 37-50;
  2300-5335
• Format:
  application/pdf
• Publisher:
  Uniwersytet Mikołaja Kopernika w Toruniu
• Relation: https://apcz.umk.pl/SziK/article/view/SZiK.2013.002/3714
• Subject:
  parergon;
  lustro;
  martwa natura;
  malarstwo;
  autoportret;
  mirror;
  still life;
  painting;
  self-portrait
• Identifier: https://apcz.umk.pl/SziK/article/view/SZiK.2013.002
• Data provider:
  Akademicka Platforma Czasopism
• Can I use it?:
  seek permission
• Type:
  text