Mirrors: Reflections of Style

by Paula Phipps

A survey of the history, forms, stylistic range, and use of mirrors in interior design. An ideal resource for anyone designing or re-creating period rooms or studying historical aesthetics, Mirrors looks at the ever-changing forms and uses of mirrors as major elements and points of emphasis in domestic interiors in the West. With a glimpse of their antecedents in classical antiquity and western Asia, the book traces a path from Louis XIV's Hall of Mirrors at Versailles and the royal and noble interiors that emulated it to mirrors in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European and New World interiors and high-chic applications in twentieth- and twenty-first-century rooms. Mirror frames and furniture incorporating mirrors are also considered. 150 full-color photographs

Genres: Nonfiction

144 pages, Hardcover

First published April 30, 2012

Reviews

[Zev · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel petty about this review but I've thought it over, and decided to leave it: I liked this book. I won't reread it. I learned a lot from it, but got so, so annoyed at choices that were made. Some pictures were beautiful, and themed well. The chronology of mirrors was done well, as well, repeatedly over the book. Halfway through, though, once I spotted the pattern, I felt comfortable skimming. My big problem: why would space, pictures, and words be dedicated to an apartment with a stripper pole just because dozens of craft store mirrors are set behind it to make a backdrop? When space, pictures and words could have been dedicated to DANCE STUDIOS and performance venues for them? Ballet studios, in particular. What are they but rooms with large plate mirrors in them, designed to do everything the authors explained mirrors were supposed to do throughout history! What a missed opportunity.