In different countries in different eras, gold, copper, silver, tin, rock crystal were used to obtain a reflective surface. Only the wealthiest people could afford a mirror. A product similar to a modern mirror was invented in 1279 by Franciscan John Peckam, who was the first to try to cover glass with a thin layer of lead: molten metal was poured into a glass flask, and after solidification, it was broken into smaller pieces. The mirrors obtained in this way were concave.
A little later, mirrors began to be produced in Venice. The masters slightly improved the John Peckam method and used tin foil, mercury and paper in the production. The Venetians strictly guarded their secret, in 1454 a decree was even issued forbidding mirror craftsmen to leave the country, and assassins were even sent for those who disobeyed. And although such a mirror was also cloudy and faded, for three centuries it remained a very rare and expensive commodity.
In the 17th century, the French king Louis XIV had a burning desire to build a magnificent Gallery of Mirrors in Versailles. The king's minister, Colbert, seduced three Venetian masters with money and promises and brought them to France. Here the technology was changed again: the French learned not to blow molten glass, but to roll it. Thanks to this method, large-sized mirrors could be made. The built Gallery of Mirrors delighted the people of that time: all objects were endlessly reflected, everything shimmered and sparkled. And by the 18th century, mirrors had become a familiar item for many Parisians - the prices for this accessory had fallen dramatically.
The French production method remained unchanged until 1835, when Professor Justus von Liebig of Germany discovered that a silver coating produced a cleaner image.
With the advent of the opportunity to see their reflection, people began to pay more attention to their appearance and behavior. Thanks to the mirror, one of the directions in psychology, called reflection, was born, i.e. - "reflection".
In a modern interior, a mirror has not only reflective functions, it is used to enhance the feeling of space and light. Properly installed mirrors push the boundaries of the room, make it bright and cozy.
According to ancient researchers, the history of the mirror began in the third millennium BC. The oldest metal mirrors were almost always round in shape, and their reverse side was covered with patterns. Bronze and silver were used for their manufacture. At the same time, polished pieces of obsidian appeared, which in ancient times were in use in China and Central America.
The first glass mirrors were created by the Romans in the 1st century AD: a glass plate was combined with a lead or tin lining, so the image turned out to be more lively than on metal. And the Greek philosopher Socrates ordered young men to look in the mirror more often - so that those who have a decent appearance do not disfigure it with vices, and those who are ugly take care to adorn themselves with good deeds.
With the beginning of the Middle Ages, glass mirrors completely disappeared: almost simultaneously, all religious denominations considered that the devil himself was looking at the world through the mirror glass. Medieval women of fashion had, as of old, to use polished metal and ... special basins of water. Carefully polished mirrors were widely used to heal the sick. They treated tuberculosis, dropsy, smallpox and any mental illness. Amazingly, many sufferers actually recovered. It is believed that metals of warm shades (bronze, brass, gold, copper) absorb "cold", depressing energies and reflect "warm", "sunny". Metals of cold shades act exactly the opposite. By manipulating mirrors made of different materials, the ancestors carried out biostimulation of the body. The patient began to actively resist the disease.
The Japanese believe that it is to the mirror that all the nations of the world owe the fact that the sun rises daily on earth. According to an ancient myth, the sun goddess Amaterasu was deeply offended by her brother Susanoo and locked herself in a deep stone grotto. Without light and heat, all life on earth began to die. Then, concerned about the fate of the world, the gods decided to lure the bright Amaterasu out of the cave. Knowing the curiosity of the goddess, an elegant necklace was hung on the branches of a tree standing next to the grotto, a mirror was placed next to it and the sacred rooster was ordered to sing loudly. At the cry of a bird, Amaterasu looked out of the grotto, seeing the necklace, could not resist the temptation to try it on. And I could not help but look in the mirror to appreciate the decoration on myself. As soon as the bright Amaterasu looked into the mirror, the world lit up and remains so to this day. The mirror is still included in the obligatory set of gifts for a Japanese girl who has reached the age of nine. It symbolizes honesty, directness, purity, and the fact that all women are still as curious as Amaterasu.
Glass mirrors reappeared only in the 13th century, namely in 1240, when they learned how to blow glass vessels .. But they were ... concave.
The manufacturing technology of that time did not know how to "glue" a tin lining to a flat piece of glass. The master blew a large ball, then poured molten tin into the tube (there was no other way to combine metal with glass), and when the tin spread evenly over the inner surface and cooled down, the ball was broken into pieces. And, please: you can look as much as you like, only the reflection was, to put it mildly, a little distorted.
Finally, around 1500, in France, they came up with the idea of "wetting" flat glass with mercury and thus sticking thin tin foil on its surface. However, flat glass in those days was incredibly expensive, and they were only able to make it well in Venice. Venetian merchants, without thinking twice, negotiated a patent from the Flemings and for a century and a half held a monopoly on the production of excellent "Venetian" mirrors (which should be called Flemish).
In the 15th century, the island of Murano, located near Venice, in the sea lagoon, became the center of glassmaking. The specially created "Council of Ten" jealously guarded the secrets of glassmaking, encouraging the craftsmen in every possible way, at the same time isolating them from the outside world: the profits from the monopoly were too great to lose it. Glassmakers were relocated to the island of Murano under the pretext of protecting Venice from fires. At the beginning of the 16th century, the brothers Andrea Domenico from Murano cut a still hot cylinder of glass lengthwise and rolled it in half on a copper tabletop. The result was a sheet mirror canvas, distinguished by its brilliance, crystal transparency and purity. This is how the main event in the history of mirror production took place.
Gold and bronze were added to reflective compositions, so all objects in the mirror looked more beautiful than in reality.
The cost of one Venetian mirror was equal to the cost of a small sea vessel. In 1500, in France, an ordinary flat mirror measuring 120 by 80 centimeters cost two and a half times more than a Raphael painting. So, for example, figures that have survived to this day say that a not-so-large mirror measuring 100x65 cm cost more than 8,000 livres, and a Raphael painting of the same size cost about 3,000 livres. Mirrors were extremely expensive. Only very wealthy aristocrats and royalty could buy and collect them.
At the end of the 16th century, succumbing to fashion, the French Queen Marie Medici decided to acquire a mirror cabinet, for which 119 mirrors were purchased in Venice. Apparently, in gratitude for the large order, the Venetian craftsmen presented the queen with a unique mirror trimmed with agates, onyxes, emeralds and inlaid with precious stones. Today it is kept in the Louvre. The English king Henry VIII and the French king Francis I proved themselves to be passionate collectors. In France, a certain Countess de Fiesque parted with her estate in order to buy a mirror she liked, and the Duchess de Lude sold silver furniture for remelting in order to purchase a mirror one. The mirror in the icon case, decorated with fine pewter lace, was once a present from Tsarevna Sofya (ruler under the boy tsars Ivan and Peter) to her heartfelt friend, Prince Golitsyn. In 1689, on the occasion of the disgrace of the prince and his son Alexei, 76 mirrors were written off to the treasury (mirror passions were already raging among the Russian nobility), but the prince hid the mirror of the princess and took it with him to exile in the Arkhangelsk region. After his death, the mirror, among other things, according to the will of the prince, ended up in a monastery near Pinega, survived and survived to this day. Now it is stored in the funds of the Arkhangelsk Museum of Local Lore.
European monarchs tried by any means to ferret out the mirror secrets of Venice. This was succeeded in the 17th century by the minister of Louis XIV - Colbert. With gold and promises, he seduced three masters from Murano and took them to France. The French turned out to be capable students and soon even surpassed their teachers. Mirror glass began to be obtained not by blowing, as was done in Murano, but by casting. The technology was as follows: molten glass was poured directly from the melting pot onto a flat surface and rolled out with a roller. The author of this method is called Luca De Nega.
The invention came in handy: the Gallery of Mirrors was being built in Versailles. It was 73 meters long and needed large mirrors. In Saint-Gabin, 306 of these mirrors were made in order to stun with their radiance those who were lucky enough to visit the king at Versailles. How then was it not possible to recognize the right of Louis XIV to be called the "Sun King"?
Since the 16th century, mirrors have regained their glory as the most mysterious and most magical objects ever created by man. With the help of games with reflection, they learned and changed the future, summoned dark forces, multiplied the harvest and performed countless rituals. Sober-minded people found more useful uses for mirrors. Intelligence in Spain and France for two hundred years in a row successfully used the cipher system invented in the 15th century by Leonardo da Vinci. The main feature of cryptograms was their "turning inside out". Dispatches were written and encrypted in "mirror reflection" and without a mirror were simply unreadable. The same ancient invention was the periscope. The ability to observe enemies unnoticed with the help of a system of mutually reflecting mirrors saved many lives for the warriors of Islam. The children's game of "sunbeams" was almost universally used by all combatants during the famous Thirty Years' War. It is difficult to aim when thousands of mirrors blind your eyes.
The modern history of mirrors dates back to the 13th century, when their handicraft technology was mastered in Holland. It was followed by Flanders and the German city of masters of Nuremberg, where in 1373 the first mirror workshop arose.
In Russia, until the end of the 17th century, the mirror was forbidden by the church clergy. The Orthodox did not use mirrors. Perhaps that is why the number of superstitions associated with mirrors in Russia is second only to the number of Chinese signs on the same occasion.
“Only mirrors in a small format were brought from abroad in large quantities and were part of the women's toilet,” wrote N.I. Kostomarov. And the historian Zabelin explains that in Russia "mirrors gained importance for room furniture almost from the second half of the 17th century, but even at that time they made up the decoration of only the interior bed rooms in the choir and did not yet have a place in the main reception rooms -" We add that and there they were hidden by curtains of taffeta and silk, or kept in icon cases.
Historical note: "The Church Council in 1666 introduced a ban on the use of mirrors by the clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church." In different regions of Russia, the traditions of using mirrors in divination have acquired directly opposite signs. In the south, love is bewitched on a black mirror, in the northern provinces - the disease of an enemy. They agree on only one thing: to break a mirror - to death or at least seven years of misfortune. Few people know a simple and effective way to "disown" from future troubles. A broken mirror must be honorably ... buried, sincerely apologizing to him for his clumsiness.
Under Peter the Great in Moscow, on Sparrow Hills, they erected "a stone barn and eighty-three feet long, nine arshins high, in which a melting furnace is made of white clay bricks." The time has come for Russia to make its own mirrors. Having become an important element of furniture and decor, the mirror required an appropriate frame. Artistic taste, talents of jewelers and artists, national coloring, craftsmanship and, of course, time, which both crafts and art are subject to, found expression in mirror frames.
In 1900, at the World Exhibition in Paris, the so-called Palace of Illusions and the Palace of Mirages enjoyed great success. In the Palace of Illusions, each wall of the large hexagonal hall was a huge polished mirror. The spectator inside this hall saw himself lost among 468 of his doubles. And in the Mirage Palace, in the same mirrored hall, a picture was depicted in each corner. Parts of the mirror with images were "turned over" with the help of hidden mechanisms. The viewer found himself either in an extraordinary tropical forest, or among the endless halls of the Arabic style, or in a huge Indian temple. "Tricks" of a hundred years ago in our time adopted the famous magician David Copperfield. His famous disappearing wagon stunt is entirely due to the Mirage Palace.
The relaxation mirror is one of the novelties successfully used in psychological relief rooms. However, the essence of the novelty is literally consecrated for centuries. To relieve fatigue, it is proposed to use the law of binocular vision. Anyone who, from overwork, begins to see poorly, can put a burning candle in front of him. Behind it, at a distance of 5-10 cm, place a mirror and look alternately at the dancing light, then at its reflection. A living light, especially its tip, will alternately excite the receptive fields of the human retina and indirectly the cells of the frontal lobes of the brain, which, having received information from the right eye and the left, will build an image of living fire. It is this image that will unload the muscles, normalize the pressure inside the eye and relieve the incipient disorder.
Geopathogenic zones are considered by many to be fiction. But this is a scientifically established fact. Energy flows that occur at the site of anomalies in the earth's crust bring tangible harm to health. The geopathogenic zone in your apartment will help to detect an ordinary domestic cat. She will actively avoid the place where the flow passes. And to cope with harmful radiation will help ... an ordinary mirror. Putting it under linoleum or carpeting, reflecting surface down, you can significantly reduce, and sometimes even get rid of harmful radiation. However, dowsing experts insist that the mirror also successfully reflects useful energy coming from space. Therefore, it is strictly forbidden to put "magic glass" with a shiny surface up.
It is known that the optical surface of even the best mirror not only reflects, but also partially absorbs, which means it “remembers” the energy incident on it. Esotericists are convinced that information "remembered" by a mirror can be emitted and act on our subconscious. There is also a version that a person is the only living being capable of recognizing himself in a mirror. The mirror is the main criterion of our self-esteem. If you do not like your appearance every day, it is difficult to count on a good mood and well-being. Therefore, in front of the mirror, you need to smile more often. And vice versa - as rarely as possible to approach him in a bad mood.
The popular Chinese teaching of Feng Shui gives special importance to mirrors. They are a kind of "redistributors" of vital energy in the right direction. In order for the hearth to be harmonious, it is strictly forbidden to place mirrors in the bedroom opposite the bed and in the corridor opposite the front door. On the contrary: mirrors placed next to the table in the living room or in the kitchen will attract all sorts of well-being into the house. The interior, made using mirror tiles, in which the reflection “crushes” will also negatively affect the attitude of the owners. Such a tile should be located in such a way that it excludes a direct reflection of the residents. Mirrors should be as large as possible. When leaving for work, it is useful to leave any banknote in front of the home mirror - let the finances be reflected and multiply.
The choice of mirrors for the home is a responsible event. The current abundance of models can satisfy the most demanding taste. However, before purchasing a “magic glass”, it is worth remembering that not only the design or the quality of processing is important. For thousands of years behind the mirrors the glory of the most magical and mysterious objects has been preserved. Therefore, it is very important to follow a simple rule: you need to buy only the mirror in which you liked yourself.
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Based on the materials of the magazine: "Ogion" 1987
Vlada, for www.site
The article presents paintings by artists: The Artist, Vicente Romero Redondo. Artist, Philip Budkin "Girl in front of a mirror". Artist, Konstantin Razumov. Artist, Morgan Weistling painting "Reflection".
It is clear that the very first mirror was an ordinary ... puddle. But here's the trouble - you can't take it with you and you can't hang it on the wall at home.
There were polished pieces of obsidian, which in ancient times were in use in China and Central America, and polished bronze discs, which found distribution in the Mediterranean.
A completely new type of mirror - concave - appeared only in 1240, when they learned how to blow glass vessels. The master blew a large ball, then poured molten tin into the tube (there was no other way to combine metal with glass), and when the tin spread evenly over the inner surface and cooled down, the ball was broken into pieces. And, please: you can look as much as you like, only the reflection was, to put it mildly, a little distorted.
Finally, around 1500, in France, they came up with the idea of "wetting" flat glass with mercury and thus sticking thin tin foil on its surface. However, flat glass in those days was incredibly expensive, and they were only able to make it well in Venice. Venetian merchants, without thinking twice, negotiated a patent from the Flemings and for a century and a half held a monopoly on the production of excellent "Venetian" mirrors (which should be called Flemish). Their price can be represented by the following example: a mirror measuring 1.2 meters by 80 centimeters cost ... two and a half times more than Raphael's canvas!
For a long time, a mirror has been considered a magical object, full of secrets and magic (and even evil spirits). It faithfully served and still serves the pagan cults of many peoples who see in it the cosmic power of the Sun.
Even the ancient Egyptians interpreted the cross, turning into a circle, as an erotic life key. And many centuries later, in the era of the European Renaissance, in this symbol they saw the image of a ladies' dressing mirror with a handle, in which the goddess of love Venus loved to look at herself so much.
The modern history of mirrors dates back to the 13th century, when their handicraft technology was mastered in Holland. It was followed by Flanders and the German city of masters Nuremberg, where in 1373 the first mirror workshop, bath mirrors and sinks, arose.
In the 15th century, the island of Murano, located near Venice, in the sea lagoon, became the center of glassmaking. The specially created "Council of Ten" jealously guarded the secrets of glassmaking, encouraging the craftsmen in every possible way, at the same time isolating them from the outside world: the profits from the monopoly were too great to lose it. Glassmakers were relocated to the island of Murano under the pretext of protecting Venice from fires. At the beginning of the 16th century, the brothers Andrea Domenico from Murano cut a still hot cylinder of glass lengthwise and rolled it in half on a copper tabletop. The result was a sheet mirror canvas, distinguished by its brilliance, crystal transparency and purity. This is how the main event in the history of mirror production took place.
European monarchs tried by any means to ferret out the mirror secrets of Venice. This was succeeded in the 17th century by the minister of Louis XIV - Colbert. With gold and promises, he seduced three masters from Murano and took them to France.
The French turned out to be capable students and soon even surpassed their teachers. Mirror glass began to be obtained not by blowing, as was done in Murano, but by casting. The technology is as follows: molten glass is poured directly from the melting pot onto a flat surface and rolled out with a roller. The author of this method is called Luca De Nega.
The invention came in handy: the Gallery of Mirrors was being built in Versailles. It was 73 meters long and needed large mirrors. In Saint-Gabin, 306 of these mirrors were made in order to stun with their radiance those who were lucky enough to visit the king at Versailles. How then was it not possible to recognize the right of Louis XIV to be called the "Sun King"?
In Russia, almost until the end of the 17th century, the mirror was considered an overseas sin. Pious people avoided him. The church council of 1666 took and forbade clerics to keep mirrors in their homes.
“Only mirrors in a small format were brought from abroad in large quantities and belonged to the women's toilet, the mirror room - domestic toilets:,” wrote N.I. Kostomarov. And the historian Zabelin explains that in Russia "mirrors gained importance for room furniture almost from the second half of the 17th century, but even at that time they made up the decoration of only the interior bed rooms in the choir and did not yet have a place in the main reception rooms -" We add that and there they were hidden by curtains of taffeta and silk, or kept in icon cases. Under Peter the Great, in Moscow, on the Sparrow Hills, "a stone barn was erected and eighty-three feet long, nine arshins high, in which a melting furnace was made of white clay bricks." The time has come for Russia to make its own mirrors.
Having become an important element of furniture and decor, the mirror required an appropriate frame. Artistic taste, peculiar talents of jewelers and artists, national coloring, craftsmanship and, of course, the time to which both crafts and art are subject, a monolith - the construction of cottages - found expression in mirror frames.
At the end of the 16th century, succumbing to fashion, the French Queen Marie Medici decided to acquire a mirror cabinet, for which 119 mirrors were purchased in Venice. Apparently, in gratitude for the large order, the Venetian craftsmen presented the queen with a unique mirror trimmed with agates, onyxes, emeralds and inlaid with precious stones. Today it is kept in the Louvre.
Mirrors were extremely expensive. Only very wealthy aristocrats and royalty could buy and collect them.
A not-so-big mirror measuring 100x65 cm cost more than 8,000 livres, and a Raphael painting of the same size cost about 3,000 livres.
In France, a certain Countess de Fiesque parted with her estate in order to buy a mirror she liked, and the Duchess de Lude sold silver furniture for melting down, renting an apartment - I’ll rent an apartment to buy a mirror.
The mirror in the icon case, decorated with fine pewter lace, was once a present from Tsarevna Sofya (ruler under the boy tsars Ivan and Peter) to her heartfelt friend, Prince Golitsyn.
In 1689, on the occasion of the disgrace of the prince and his son Alexei, 76 mirrors were written off to the treasury (mirror passions were already raging among the Russian nobility), but the prince hid the mirror of the princess and took it with him to exile in the Arkhangelsk region. After his death, the mirror, among other things, according to the will of the prince, ended up in a monastery near Pinega, survived and survived to this day. Now it is stored in the funds of the Arkhangelsk Museum of Local Lore.
How many times have we heard or read the tale of the evil queen and the beautiful Snow White! - To the chagrin of the queen, the magic mirror considered Snow White to be the most beautiful in the world. Who can say how many times women have looked in the mirror for an answer to an exciting question?! The mirror, unfortunately, is silent, because it is not magical, and everyone must guess the answer for himself.
Once upon a time, for the first time, a man leaned over a spring to get drunk and saw himself on the surface of the water. Since he had never seen his own face before, he was very frightened and thought that a merman was looking at him. Perhaps that is why our imagination has created so many water spirits with a human appearance, with and without a tail. According to Greek mythology, rivers and lakes in the old days were literally teeming with them, they had as little free space as they have now on the beach in summer. Later, the man guessed that he sees his own reflection in the water, but the phenomenon itself remained still inexplicable and mysterious for him. It remains the desire to look at yourself again and again. Thus, the need for a mirror arose, at the same time, a person began to look for more reliable ways to satisfy his desire than the smooth surface of the water. For this purpose, polished stones, such as obsidian and pyrite, metals with a shiny surface - copper, bronze, silver and gold, rock crystal and even dark wood, were suitable. These materials were mostly expensive, and for the common people for a long time the only "mirror" was the surface of the water. In the mythology of many peoples, legends associated with the mirror have been preserved. The most famous of them, perhaps, is the story of the beautiful young man Narcissus, who fell in love with his own reflection in spring water and did not find the strength to move away from the spring. As a punishment for narcissism and coquetry, the gods turned the young man into a flower - a narcissus, which later became a symbol of oblivion and death.
There are countless versions of the man who first invented the mirror. According to the Bible, he was Tubal-cain, the first coppersmith on earth. Egyptian and Hebrew mirrors were mostly copper. According to Homer, Odysseus' wife Penelope had a golden mirror. In Rome, silver mirrors were preferred, the reverse side of which was covered with gold plates. Unusually beautiful mirrors were made until the last century in China and Japan. The Chinese mirror alloy consisted of 80 parts of copper, nine parts of lead and eight parts of antimony. Chinese mirrors were round in shape, with a diameter of 10-20 cm. The oldest Japanese mirror is allegedly a gift from the Sun God and is included in the regalia of the empire.
The original and most important purpose of the mirror was, of course, purely utilitarian - to see one's own reflection. Only later did it begin to acquire other functions, decorative or ritual. By the third millennium BC. e. belong in Egyptian art to images of a round hand mirror. Such mirrors have also been found in graves. As a luxury item, the mirror quickly turned into a piece of applied art. The reverse side was used for decoration.
There is an assumption that in Egypt and Rome, where glass production had reached a high level by that time, glass mirrors were also found. According to the Roman writer Pliny, glass mirrors with a dark surface were made in Sidon (in the Middle East), which could be an imitation of ancient obsidian mirrors. Unfortunately, not a single glass mirror of the ancient era has come down to us.
After the collapse of the Roman Empire and ancient culture in Europe, there was a long pause in the production of both glass and mirrors. It is unlikely, of course, that women for almost a whole millennium did not have an interest in their appearance. They apparently used metal mirrors, although the first medieval mirrors survived only from the thirteenth century. They are made of polished metal or rock crystal. The existence of mirrors is also mentioned in medieval literature. In 625, Pope Boniface IV sent a silver mirror as a gift to Queen Ethelberg of England. Images of hand mirrors and mirror boxes were also found in Scotland on stone sculptures dating back to the 7th-9th centuries. The French philosopher Vincent Beauvais wrote in 1250 that the best glass mirrors were those coated with lead. In Germany, mirrors began to be made at the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries.
The South American Indians considered the mirror a portal to another world - one that no man can penetrate. The Chinese have learned to make "magic" mirrors, and the Venetians are fabulously expensive. And, perhaps, nowhere in the world this mysterious invention was left without a trail of legends, beliefs, curses and mysteries, many of which exist to this day.
M. de Caravaggio. "Narcissus"
Once upon a time, you could see your reflection only by looking into a reservoir of stagnant water, as Narcissus did from ancient Greek mythology. But then a mirror appeared - the exact history, as well as the time of its occurrence, is lost in the very distant past. Apparently, it all started with polished obsidian plates - natural volcanic glass.
Such finds were made on the territory of modern Turkey and are dated to the seventh millennium BC. It was already the Bronze Age, and in addition to obsidian as a material for the manufacture of a reflective object, this particular alloy of copper and tin gradually began to be used. Bronze mirrors were made round - in the shape of the Sun - both as a sign of reverence for the main deity, and as a sign that it was the mirror that reflected the sun's rays.
Probably, different cultures of the world came to the idea of creating smooth polished surfaces on their own, in any case, mirrors made in the Bronze Age and at the beginning of the Iron Age are found in different parts of the globe. For many peoples, the mirror was used in magical rites and endowed with magical properties. And in ancient China, as a confirmation of their magical nature, some bronze mirrors seemed to demonstrate real magic. Flat on one side and adorned with pattern and relief on the other, they, as expected, showed a reflection of what was in front of them. But if with the help of such a mirror the sunlight was reflected, directing it to the wall, instead of the usual sunbeam on the wall, a pattern on the back side became visible.
For an ancient person, this demonstration was not, perhaps, a serious puzzle, because mirrors without it were credited with a connection with another world, but it is interesting that an exact explanation of this property of some Chinese magic mirrors has not been received so far. The versions put forward - including those about slight curvature of the mirror surface, about the effect of acid, which creates a pattern invisible to the eye on the polished side - could explain the effect obtained, and such experiments were successfully carried out by specialists, but still the secret of Chinese masters that would shed light on the ancient profession of a mirror craftsman remains unidentified. Not all mirrors made in China possessed "magical" properties; in general, the production of these bronze objects, decorated with various kinds of ornaments, became widespread by the end of the first millennium BC.
A large number of ancient mirrors were found in Siberia, in the Minusinsk Basin - several hundred bronze items belonging to different periods and different cultures. On the back side, there are not just ornaments, but whole scenes, especially emphasizing the ritual significance of the mirror for its owner. Obviously, often these items served as an amulet.
From China, mirrors came to the Korean Peninsula, from where the Japanese adopted the method of their manufacture. During the Yayoi and Kofun periods, a bronze mirror was left in the graves of rulers and aristocrats as a way to help the deceased enter the afterlife. In Buddhism, which came to the islands in the sixth century, mirrors also performed ritual functions.
From Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt, where a polished copper plate was used to obtain a reflective surface, the technology of making a mirror came to the ancient world. Mirrors were made, in particular, in Cyprus, where there was a large copper deposit. Therefore, the goddess Aphrodite - nicknamed Cyprida after her birthplace - was often depicted with a mirror, which was also a symbol of female beauty. According to some versions, it was the mirror that was held in the hands of the famous statue of Venus de Milo. Philosophers also treated the mirror with respect: Socrates urged to look at one's reflection in order to know and then improve oneself.
The Greeks sang the miraculous power of mirror reflection in mythology - in the battle with Medusa the Gorgon, it was it that helped Perseus win: in order not to meet the gaze of the monster that turns all living things into stone, the hero fought the battle, looking into his shield, as if into a mirror, and was able to cut off Medusa head. But the “mirror of Archimedes” is no longer so mythological in nature, although the reliability of the very fact of burning the enemy fleet with the help of the “death ray” is being questioned. It is traditionally believed that in the Battle of Syracuse, the Greek warriors used the method invented by Archimedes to set fire to enemy ships by directing the sun's rays reflected from the shields at them.
The sign of the female, "mirror of Venus", goes back to the traditional form of antique mirrors.
Metal and stone mirrors, although they performed their function, still had significant drawbacks - they needed constant polishing, and the reflection turned out to be dark and fuzzy. In this, metal mirrors were significantly outperformed by glass ones, the first of which began to be created in the first century AD in the territory of modern Lebanon.
In Europe, the production of glass mirrors dates back to the 13th century. For their manufacture, a glass vessel was used, into which molten tin was poured during the blowing process, then the solidified product was broken, and a mirror was made from the fragments.
The process was time-consuming and expensive; gold was added to the composition of the light-reflecting substance. The cost of products was extremely high - only very wealthy people could afford to have a mirror in the house. In payment for one such product, both the estate and the sea vessel were given. It is interesting that it was much cheaper to order your own portrait from a brilliant master - this, in fact, was done by those who wanted to always have their “reflection” at hand.
In the 16th century, craftsmen from the island of Murano first created a flat mirror - by cutting a still hot glass cylinder and rolling the halves on copper plates. Mirrors are clean and shiny. The invention was appreciated in France - there it literally came to court, the royal family became the main customer of mirrors, and in 1665 the first own manufactory was opened in the country.
Thanks to the development of mirror production, it became possible to paint self-portraits, which gave posterity an idea of the appearance of the painters of the past. Yes, and in their work, the masters used the capabilities of mirrors - Leonardo da Vinci advised artists to look at the reflection of their work in order to assess its authenticity and harmony.
The painting by Rubens demonstrates the Venus effect, popular in art, when a person in front of a mirror looks not at his own reflection, but at the viewer
Later, liquid glass was poured directly onto a reflective surface and rolled out, and in 1835 the German chemist Justus von Liebig invented the silver plating method, a technology still used today. It is difficult to overestimate the practical importance of the mirror in the modern world - it is used in almost all areas of human activity. However, the magical, otherworldly nature of the object, which allows you to look into another world, through the looking glass, still remains one of the main features of mirrors.
A. Steenwinkel. "Double self-portrait"
Modern man, even if he does not believe in the myths of the past, still reads about the Mirror of Einalezh in the Harry Potter saga, believes in numerous signs associated with mirrors, performs ancient rituals - for example, look into a home mirror, returning from the road for a forgotten thing.
Despite all the accumulated knowledge, the centuries-old culture of mankind suggests that it is better to treat the looking glass with caution and respect - as civilizations of the past did.
E. Manet. "Bar at the Folies Bergère"
The painting "Bar at the Folies Bergère" is one of those that make the viewer - the mysterious reflection in the mirror is to blame.
