Hopefully — even if only for a moment — you got to see in the top two images Vermeer’s iconic painting with fresh eyes. The images are reversed left to right.
It is not an uncommon practice for artists to pause in the process of working on a painting or other artwork and view the work in a mirror. This briefly provides a fresh view of the work, a contrast to the the kind of familiarity that makes it difficult to see something objectively.
We can use the same effect to view images that are so culturally familiar they are difficult to see in the way we might have when first encountering them. The effect doesn’t last long; we soon become accustomed to the “new” view, but it’s nice to get a fresh view of something so familiar.
I’ve included an image of the painting in its normal orientation at the bottom.
Wikimedia Commons has a high resolution image of the painting, available from this page.
I did the same thing back in 2006 with Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, and in the process, I believe I gained some insight into her enigmatic smile/not smile.
