Mirror

"We are looking at a picture in which the painter is in turn looking out at us."(Michel Foucault)

What is a typical mirror to you?

After reading Las Meninas by Michel Foucault, I understand the meaning of the triangle of art more clearly. There are so many great quotes in this paper that I am going to post my favorites!!

• "the canvas has its back turned to that spectator"
• "the painter is turning his eyes towards us only in so far as we happen to occupy the same position as his subject"
• "Because we can see only that reverse side, we do not know who we are, or what we are doing. Seen or seeing? The painter is observing a place which, from moment to moment, never ceases to change its constant, its form, its face, its identity."
• "We are observing ourselves being observed by the painter, and we made visible to his eyes by the same light that enables us to see him."
• This one is more of an interesting quote. "In Dutch painting it was traditional for mirrors to play a duplicating role: they repeated the original contents of the picture, only inside an unreal, modified, contracted, concave space."
• "We must therefore pretend not to know who is to be reflected in the depths of the mirror, and interrogate that reflection in  its own terms."