How do different cultures accept glass mirrors? What are the different meanings of wearing mirrors in different paintings and landscapes in different cultures? In the new book "Objects, Paintings, and Shadows: A Global History of the Wearing Mirror" by art historian and University of Chicago professor Wu Hong, Wu Hong presents the rich historical landscape of the wearing mirror and its symbolic meaning and aesthetic taste that cannot be ignored at the beginning of its birth and application by interpreting various paintings, photographs, literary materials, and physical objects. Pengpai News recently had a conversation with Wu Hong regarding this matter.

　　In places such as Yikun Palace, Yangxin Palace, and Juanqinzhai in the Forbidden City today, you may see an object that seems to be out of place with the grandeur and time atmosphere of the palace because it is too ordinary - a floor to ceiling glass mirror, which we now call a dressing mirror.

　　Due to the maturity of the mirror industry, large mirrors were invented in 1688 and began its long global journey. They were once pasted on the walls of the Palace of Versailles, reflecting the garden and forming an infinite and transparent mirror hall like a castle in the air; It was also presented as tribute to the Qing Palace and loved by the highest rulers represented by Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong. For example, Emperor Qianlong constantly expressed his interest in mirrors and mirror images in poetry, literature, and painting. In the retirement and retirement space he prepared for himself - Qianlong Garden, he set up a "mirror gate", and behind the mirror gate was a mysterious space covered with panoramic paintings that were both real and illusory; In literary works such as "Dream of the Red Chamber," all events related to the large glass mirror take place in Jia Baoyu's Yihong Courtyard. The lost space and illusion created by the large glass mirror are used to unravel the mystery of "real and fake Baoyu

The Palace of Versailles' Hall of Mirrors'

　　In the 1820s, Jiao Bingzhen's "Portrait of a Lady in the Mirror" invented a frame and a movable floor standing glass mirror for women to take selfies in the mirror. Through cross-border trade, objects, paintings, and photography were connected in the global historical process. From Europe to the world, the "wearing mirror photography mode" gradually spread around the world. Emperors, artists, writers, and the public constructed complex and endless time and space illusions in visual associations and artistic creations related to mirrors, which not only participated in past and current events, but also always reflected information beyond real life. This is what Wu Hong's new book "Things, Paintings, and Shadows: A Global History of Wearing Mirrors" tells. When Wu Hong first publicly discussed the topic of "wearing mirrors" at the School of Humanities of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2019, a scholar in attendance even believed that the words "wearing mirrors" were printed incorrectly. In this book, Wu Hong presented a rich historical picture of wearing mirrors and their symbolic meanings and aesthetic tastes that cannot be ignored at the beginning of their birth and application by interpreting various paintings, photographs, literature materials, and physical objects.

　　The book "Objects, Paintings, and Shadows" is divided into two parts. The first part is titled "Objects and Images" and is divided into two chapters: "From Versailles to the Forbidden City: The East West Joint Creation of Clothing Mirrors" and "From the Yihongyuan to the Hall of Mental Cultivation: Mirror Screens in Literature and Visual Imagination". It mainly tells the story of a new form of large glass mirrors that emerged after they were introduced to China - glass was embedded in a screen with a base, thus becoming a mirror screen. Its "hallucinogenic" function was deeply loved by emperors and writers; The second part is titled "Media and Subject". Wu Hong describes a photography mode he discovered during his material collection, which involves "a person standing in front of a dressing mirror reflecting a mirror to form two images". This "dressing mirror portrait" mode is commonly used by famous courtesans in places such as the Manchu nobility and the wives of Siamese kings, as well as in ordinary photography studios.

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