The Claude Glass
Use and Meaning of the black Mirror in Western Art
By Arnaud Maillet
Translated by Jeff Fort
Arnaud Maillet's The Claude Glass is a remarkable contribution to the history of Western visual culture. In the first full-length study of a largely forgotten optical device from the eighteeth century, Maillet reconfigures our historical understanding of visual experience and meaning in relation to notions of opacity, transparency, and imagination. Many are familiar with The Claude Glass as a small black convex mirror used by artists and spectators of landscapes to reflect a view and make tonal values and areas of light and shade visible. Maillet, in this fascinating account, goes well beyond this particular function of the glass and situates it within a richer archaeolgy of Western thought, exploring the uncertainties and anxieties about mirrors, reflections and their potential distortions. He takes us from the magical and occult background of the "black mirror" through a full evaluation of its importance in the age of the picturesque, to its persistence in a range of technological and representational practices such as photography, film and contemporary art.
Julie Fry.
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