On Reflection
European painting has long aspired to hold a mirror to nature -- and in so doing has taken up the challenge of representing the effects of light on reflective surfaces. In this beautiful book, Jonathan Miller investigates the pictorial representation of sheen, shine, glimmer, and gleam through a wonderfully varied selection of paintings and photographs drawn from the National Gallery, London, and other international collections.Miller describes our perceptual opacity to recognize real-life mirrors as well as those in pictures, a complex psychological process of which we are usually unaware. He also traces the ambivalent imagery of mirrors from neutral aids to representing the self, as in Rem