Abstract

The metaphorical relationship between mirror and painting occasions the most provocative recent discussions in the field of the Early Netherlandish Painting because it concerns the origin of representational painting. Herewith I discuss how mirror is related to painting in the Early Netherlandish Painting, especially in the oeuvre of Jan van Eyck. In the Arnolfini Portrait , his awareness of painting as mirror is well demonstrated through the painting itself as well as the painted mirror. The mirror and the painting share not only semiotic and representational functions but also a physical one as supports of images, which is realized in the letters on the surface of the painting and through the distorted image in the mirror. Additionally, the awareness also inheres in his oil-painting techniques. First, he prepared a rubbed white support which gives the illusion of a mirror filled with light reflection. Then he proceeded to shelter the reflected light by using pigments and the semitransparent medium of oil. The process is a conversed procedure of mirror, which is originally dark, catching light. Such awareness might be cultivated in a possible paragone with mirror, which was one of the traditional metaphors of painting, and was incorporated in the following paintings with the aforementioned oil painting techniques