I have always had a weird appreciation for mirrors that are basically destroyed. Time and wear has rendered them into crusty, cracked, molting, melting, messes of wood and metal and glasses that now no longer serve the one function they were created to do. Every mirror in my home is useless and all the more beautiful for it. This art nouveau hand mirror is amongst my favorite. It is so formally lovely, likely gilt at one point but has been used for decades and decades. The handle is smooth and shiny while the rest is cloudy, showing true constant use. Most wonderfully the silvering used to back the glass and produce the mirror effect has completely and evenly tarnished. It is not just darkened, it is not just tarnished, it is not a cloudy shadow of what a mirror once was. It is a black void when viewed in person. Your image is not just lost in translation back to you, it is sucked into a lightless void, trapped by a chemical process that will haunt me forever. Art nouveau is by no means my preferred aesthetic. I appreciate it and have owned many wonderful pieces but it is not an aesthetic I collect or generally keep. However the amazing juxtapostion of a gilt, art nouveau, beautfiul woman on the back of what is now a visually violent remnant of a mirror is just too good. I like subtlety in art, I prefer when things are not so on the nose, but there is something about this that just lands for me. The vanity of a fine object that was produced to express wealth and taste and do the literal service of indulging vanity, that now from age is not just a shadow of itself but is actively serving the opposite role it was made to do. Sure a skull is the standard memento mori symbol for good reason, but this decay rings so much truer. Pick this up and try and see yourself in it and you will struggle. You will have to look deeper and try harder and see through life and history. It’s so obvious its almost silly. But this beautiful mirror makes me thing harder about mortality than any of the skulls in my home.
I have always had a weird appreciation for mirrors that are basically destroyed. Time and wear has rendered them into crusty, cracked, molting, melting, messes of wood and metal and glasses that now no longer serve the one function they were created to do. Every mirror in my home is useless and all the more beautiful for it. This art nouveau hand mirror is amongst my favorite. It is so formally lovely, likely gilt at one point but has been used for decades and decades. The handle is smooth and shiny while the rest is cloudy, showing true constant use. Most wonderfully the silvering used to back the glass and produce the mirror effect has completely and evenly tarnished. It is not just darkened, it is not just tarnished, it is not a cloudy shadow of what a mirror once was. It is a black void when viewed in person. Your image is not just lost in translation back to you, it is sucked into a lightless void, trapped by a chemical process that will haunt me forever. Art nouveau is by no means my preferred aesthetic. I appreciate it and have owned many wonderful pieces but it is not an aesthetic I collect or generally keep. However the amazing juxtapostion of a gilt, art nouveau, beautfiul woman on the back of what is now a visually violent remnant of a mirror is just too good. I like subtlety in art, I prefer when things are not so on the nose, but there is something about this that just lands for me. The vanity of a fine object that was produced to express wealth and taste and do the literal service of indulging vanity, that now from age is not just a shadow of itself but is actively serving the opposite role it was made to do. Sure a skull is the standard memento mori symbol for good reason, but this decay rings so much truer. Pick this up and try and see yourself in it and you will struggle. You will have to look deeper and try harder and see through life and history. It’s so obvious its almost silly. But this beautiful mirror makes me thing harder about mortality than any of the skulls in my home.
