Mussell, J orcid.org/0000-0002-5697-1557 (2013) Specular Reflections: John Brett and the Mirror of Venus. 19: interdisciplinary studies in the long nineteenth century (17). pp. 1-19. ISSN 1755-1560
Abstract
When John Brett, the Pre-Raphaelite painter and astronomer, presented his theory of specular reflection in Venus to the Royal Astronomical Society, he provoked a controversy over both the constitution of the planet and the learned society. Brett thought Venus was most likely a ball of molten metal enclosed in a glass envelope and this raised the tantalizing possibility that it might function as a mirror, reflecting back an image of the earth. A few months later another Mirror of Venus was displayed at the Grosvenor Gallery. The surface of Edward Burne-Jones's painting provides a different model of reflection but one that illuminates the space of the Royal Astronomical Society and the practice of astronomy more broadly. Using Burne-Jones’s painting as a point of comparison, I argue that Brett’s astronomy put into play a desiring, viewing subject that was disavowed in his landscape art.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © Author 2013. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
Keywords: | astronomy; art; art history; reflection |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of English (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 27 Nov 2013 17:37 |
Last Modified: | 19 Feb 2019 15:54 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | University of London, Birkbeck College |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:77135 |