Art Mirrors Art

I don't particularly like this 'art', but the picture of snow falling on a vast, empty beach is so very soothing during the sixth heatwave in a row that I can't resist.

The installation is called Chimera. It was designed by Enzo Zak Lux studio in collaboration with Denys Horodnyak; in essence, it's just 44 convex traffic mirrors mounted on industrial scaffolding and erected on a winter beach:

But the piece became a winner of the annual exhibition in Toronto called Winter Stations, and so we now read passages like this:

Chimera engages with the notion of mirage... and serves as a dialectical reflection on the fragmentation of physical and digital realities, exposing the delicate imbalance between control and security

and other such art-speaky b00lshit. This edition was held in February, so the snow. The piece looks pretty monumental in the photos above, but it was actually fairly small - the guys took the smallest (and cheapest) security mirrors available:

Came across this strange artifact in a local art museum (so it should be an artwork then) - it seems to be a small model of a room of some sort. It's described in Dutch as Maquette van een nachtverblijf voor vrouwen, or 'Model of a night accommodation for women', made around mid 1960s.

The English 'night accommodation' does not quite convey the actual meaning of the Dutch nachtverblijf - in real life it was more like an overnight cell, or a night shelter for women (perhaps homeless women, or women briefly detained that day - e.g., for drunkenness etc).

The model was made by a certain P.N. Stomph - who was actually a director of a prison (!) in Leeuwarden in the mid-1950s (that's the Netherlands - or Friesland, to be precise). So theoretically it may also represent a prison cell. Here is a close-up view from above:

We can see that this confinement room was furnished not only with a bed, but also with a table with a basin on it (maybe even a proper washstand) - and with a mirror (!)

It was difficult to take a picture of this mirror through the wire net; here is my best effort:

The museum adds the following rhetorical question to the otherwise very factual description of the piece (wood, metal, textile, ceramics):

What does it feel like to be confined in a small room, without a view but with the knowledge that others can see you at any moment?

I can only add an AMA version of it: What does it mean to look at yourself in a mirror, knowing that somebody can always watch you looking at yourself?

A couple of pics from the solar eclipse of yesterday with the use - if not mirrors, then at least some reflective surfaces; both weretaken in Spain, in Castell de Cabres, both by Eva Manez from Reuters (August 12, 2026)

My friend (the same one, with the frame-cutting skill) has sent me yet another picture, this time from the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm - of the painting by Cornelis Cornelisz. van Haarlem, The Mirror of Time (1628) I've shared it here already, but years ago, and of poor quality, so here it is, one more time:

It's oil painting on copper plate, ~ 40x50 cm It's called The Mirror of Time today (or De spiegel van de tijd in Dutch), though at the times of its creation the scene would be likely described as Vadertje Tijd (Father Time). Apparently the motif was popular as a few years later the painter created another, a bit larger (and a bit gender-swapped) version of the scene:

I suddenly realized that I never actually shared here this etching of Prudence by Hendrick Goltzius; he made it around 1600s, as a part of the series with all Christian virtues. The inscription reads:

Arcanas rerum scrutor Prudentia causas, Praeterita ancipiti vultu videoque futura.

which means:

I, Prudence, investigate the hidden causes of things; with my double face I see both the past and the future.

The design was very popular in the first half of the 17th century and was reproduced by many etchers, including Jacob Matham (whom this print is often attributed to). As with many works by Goltzius he copied, he mirrored the original:

A silver tankard (!) with Christian virtues (!!) Made in Germany around 1660s, the tankard depicts four virtues - Justice, Temperance, Prudence and Charity.

The Prudence (with mirror and snakes) borrows from the famous design by Hendrick Goltzius:

Ingel Fallstedt - Kvinna vid spegel {Woman by a Mirror} (c.1880s)

Bahram Gur and the Persian Princess in the White Pavilion, a miniature from Haft Payk by Nizami Gouache and gold on paper, ~ 15x22 cm, c. 1800s, Qajar Iran Bahram Gur, also known as Bahram V, was the legendary king who ruled Iran in 420-438. In Nizami's story, written much later, in 12th century, he marries seven princesses from the seven regions of the world and builds a different coloured pavilion for each.

The seven pavilions correspond to seven days, seven colours and seven planets. During one week he visits one princess each night, and each tells him a story.

This pavilion is White, so it's also Friday - and Venus (the name of the princess is Dorosti, or Diroste).

Which makes the black rectangle on a wall likely a mirror - of course, not the 5th-century mirror but a 19th-century wall mirror inserted into a legendary setting: