Wedding Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini by Jan van Eyck
Through my research on Jan van Eyck, I keep finding references that seem more suitable for Elena's project..
Here, the mirror is situated centrally in the painting, directly above the clasped hands of the wedding couple, who are standing in a room furnished in bourgeois style. The mirror has a lightly curved, convex form that not only reflects the objects in the room, but things happening beyond the picture's frame, as well. A gaze into the round mirror shows a clear view of the couple's back as well as two witnesses standing in an open doorframe. The crucial difference here is that the mirror is depicting something that has to be occurring where the viewer is standing. The viewer assumes the position of witness, becoming integrated in a peculiar way into the picture's story. The round mirror dissolves the separation between pictorial space and viewer's space, producing a continuous whole. This connection finds its correspondence in the represented scene of betrothal.
