Abstract
HE.i N his celebrated Arnolfini portrait, Van Eyck places a mirror at centre rear, reflecting the backs of the wedding couple and the blurred images of the witnesses, who by implication include ourselves and the artist; Johannes de Eyck fuit hic, he wrote on it. Velazquez went one better: his mirror in Las meninas reflects a royal couple in whose shoes we stand, while the painter sets himself within the picture frame, engaged in the act of painting, looking cockily out at the lookers-on turned into the looked-at. This sort of effect, in which the work mirrors itself and the creator highlights his own and his audience's roles in the creation of the work of art, has become a hallmark of much modern fiction. The making of fictive worlds and the creative functioning of language are self-consciously shared; the reader of novels is no longer asked merely to recognize that these worlds are lifelike, but caught in the paradoxical situ-
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
