The Claude Glass: Use and Meaning of the Black Mirror in Western Art.

BY ARNAUD MAILLET/TRANSLATED BY JEFF FORT THE MIT PRESS/2009/295 PP./$21.95 (HB)

Translated from the earlier French version, The Claude Glass offers a significant look at western visual culture through the eyes of this eighteenth-century optical device minimally described as a convex, tinted mirror. More to the point, the Claude Glass is most commonly black, small in shape and size, and said to conjure melancholy. The important work of this book traces the historical meaning of this mirror as well as the significance of the glass over time. Certainly, not only does this translucent black mirror cause notable historical stirrings, but the metaphysical perspective devises even greater implications in the magic and occult notion as well. After all, a black mirror details the shadows; what is then left is the imagination or the subconscious. With The Claude Glass, students can determine the meaning in relation to opacity and transparency, drawing too on the relation of the visual as it pertains to the artist's work. The artist, who drew on the glass for light and shade, most certainly found the landscapes all the more complicated through the contrasts reflected in the objects. From there a more modern look gauges the significance of this esoteric creation, detailing the nuances involving the ubiquitous distortions found in the mirror. The black mirror today stands to benefit both photography and film with implications as far-reaching as the reflections that date back to the melancholy images reflected by the user.

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RITA COOK is a freelance writer/editor who has written over one thousand articles during her career.

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