#bare breast

Jules Pascin - Jeune femme sur chaise verte (1909)

The painting looks quite differently in its original frame:

@nonhapiupareti made quite an x-mas present recently by sharing this weird artwork. It clearly is an ‘art mirror’, but at first I was completely puzzled - what the hell is that?

As I wrote recently, I know one or two things about mirrors in art - and yet I was completely bemused. Not only had I never seen this work before, but I also had no clue how to interpret it (at first I even thought it was Christ himself holding a mirror). The story is actually very interesting (and also a bit sad). First, here is an attempt to make a colorized version of this fresco:

And yes, it was a fresco indeed - part of the lavish decoration of the so-called Chapel of Santa Maria dei Bulgari in Bologna, Italy, itself part of the Archiginnasio of Bologna, once the main building of the University of Bologna and one of the city’s most remarkable monuments.

Back in the day, the interior of the chapel looked like this (the frescoes were painted by the Italian master Bartolomeo Cesi circa 1590s):

Unfortunately, in 1944 the building was almost entirely destroyed during the bombing of the city; only a small fraction of the wall frescoes survived, while all the ceiling paintings are gone:

Somewhat fortunately, however, someone (most likely the photographer Pietro Poppi) made a series of b/w photographs of all the frescoes - and now these are the only records we have (the first image above comes from this set.) That alone would already be enough material for my AMA post, but as I found out, there was at least one more fresco with a mirror (again, we only have a black-and-white photo, but I show a color reconstruction):

This is an equally enigmatic composition, though the role of its mirror is somewhat more clear. The fresco cycle of the chapel was actually dedicated to the Life of the Virgin, and here we see one of her attributes: Speculum sine macula. Now, which of these naked or semi-naked women is the Virgin - if any - is still a big question!

There was yet another very interesting ceiling fresco, more likely depicting Mary with an (arch)angel - but also with putti who apparently represent... the cardinal virtues!

We can clearly identify Justice (scales), Fortitude (sword and column), and Temperance (pouring liquid or sand?); whether Prudence is represented by the cherub with flowers is less clear. So, what is the meaning of the first mirror?

This is likely not a literal episode from Mary’s life, but rather an emblematic, ‘heavenly’ personification. The mirror here may signal ideas such as Truth or Revelation - or even Divine Light (mirror + radiance = truth made visible).

Worth remembering that the chapel was a part of the university, and the metaphor of the 'naked truth' could be close to the mindset of the true scholars. Or (my bet) it could be an allusion to Prudence!