Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., USA
Location History:
Created in the United States around 1910. The painting was subsequently owned by William T. Evans, who donated it to the Smithsonian in 1911. It entered the Smithsonian collection under accession number 1911.2.4 and remains in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. It is currently listed as not on view.
The Mirror by Robert Reid is an oil painting completed in about 1910. In the picture, we see a woman standing indoors before a mirror or some other kind of reflective surface. She wears a long blue dress, and the position of her body creates almost diagonal movement in the picture. In contrast to other portraits, where a woman is depicted as the main element, Reid surrounds her with an environment full of flowers, vegetation, various decorations and mirrors. Thus, the figure seems to dissolve in its surroundings.
What catches my eye in the painting is that the mirror does not serve only as a device through which the woman reflects herself. It brings an extra dimension into the whole scene. The face of the woman is turned away from us while her reflection in the mirror is shown partially blurred. Therefore, we see only fragments of her presence, but we see her in private moments. At the same time, there is an intimacy in the distance created between the viewer and the subject of the picture.
The colors are amazing in this work. Blue dominates in the dress of the woman and also in the surroundings, and various yellows, creams, pinks and greens add a special luminosity to the picture. The brush stroke of Reid is loose enough for flowers and decorations to blend with the woman. Thus, colors are the connecting elements between the woman, the mirror and the room.
Despite belonging to the American Impressionist period, the painting is not attractive just because of its beauty. There is a kind of uneasy relationship between the process of decoration and that of identification. The woman is surrounded by those elements that should be viewed, while the face of the woman is partially hidden. Thus, the mirror, the device of self-knowledge and recognition, becomes complicated. Is she observing herself or are we searching for her in the picture?
For me, the interesting point of The Mirror is that it turns a common domestic scene into a philosophical inquiry. There is no doubt that the painting is beautiful, but beauty does not clarify everything that happens here. Behind the flowers and colors there is a subtle question of how a person becomes an image and how much can be recovered in the process of looking at it.
"The Mirror" by Robert Lewis Reid is one of the supreme examples of the American Impressionistsā aestheticism, which focuses on pure decoration and graceful idealization instead of a narrative. Reid does not intend to find any kind of psychological conflict or make any comment on society but rather presents an elegant image. In the painting, a lady, who wears cool-colored silky clothes, is depicted in an introspective mood. It looks like a poem dedicated to domestic elegance of America rather than a detailed character.
