Mirrors in the interior: spatial metamorphosis, playing with rhythm and scale

Passing the gallery

Leading headings: Elena Prytula

Magazine: N4 (60) 2002

While art critics argue about how paradoxical the world is in the mirror image, the mirrors themselves confidently inhabit our living space. So confidently that they have accompanied us everywhere for a long time - from a miniature mirror in a handbag to giant mirror surfaces in urban interiors. In this total presence there is not only beauty, but also danger: after all, the ancients also warned that it was easy to get lost in mirror labyrinths ... In the objective world, the mirror has always existed in two dimensions. The first is associated with the immediate, mundane concept of a mirror, with its practical application. The second "purpose" of the mirror is to create illusory effects. In this replacement of the real unreal, in the game of the present and the imaginary lies the danger of losing the usual coordinate system. But how attractive this game is with its own mind and imagination! It was not by chance that at all times it was believed that the "looking-glass", where everything arises in the reverse perspective, is a symbol of supernatural life: through the reflection in the mirror, the external world took place (and continues to happen). In ancient Chinese painting scrolls, for example, a landscape could not be considered perfect if it was not reflected in an inverted form in the “mirror” of water ... For some peoples, mirrors were considered to be a miniature model of the Universe, for others, the “light” soul "the soul represented by the shadow. In many cultures, the mirror symbolized the firmament or was like the sun, and the brilliance of the mirror was attributed to the ability to drive away evil spirits. Notions that with the help of mirrors, a water surface or glass spheres, it is possible to cause figurative hallucinations were especially stable, and the experiments began at the very early stage of the history of the mirror. The first mirrors began to be made of polished metal - bronze or silver. These were hand or standing mirrors, decorated with engraving in the form of figures and ornaments. Later, in the XI century, mirrors of glass appeared: first, in the XII-XIII centuries, a polished plate of lead alloy was covered with glass, which was replaced with tin amalgam in the XIV century. But silver is used as a metal base for glass only from the XIX century. However, the paradox of the mirror, the trail of magical-occult ideas behind it and all kinds of oddities like convex-concave mirrors only increase interest. The range of techniques used by designers working with mirrors is unusually wide. First, this is the doubling of space and objects, and above all, of the person himself. There is a certain imperativeness in this: if there is a mirror, you will certainly want to take a look there, and at the same time see the “manifest” world of objects there. Doubling the space, the mirrors naturally expand it. Finally, with the help of mirrors, space can be bent, making it almost unrecognizable. One can talk endlessly about the meaning of such spatial metamorphosis - it is important to find your own self in the labyrinths of intellectual-mirror reflections ...