“Are dreams the limpid discourse between the facets of a crystal block?”…
“The world is of glass. You know it by its brilliance, night or day.
The earth turns in a mirror. The earth turns in a scarf….”
Nothing captures the ephemeral present as does ancient mirrored mosaic.
Three shimmering glass peacocks perch in bas relief in the Peacock Courtyard of City Palace in Udaipur. Assembled from thousands of fragments, they have been in place for hundreds of years.
One stands in for each season: winter, summer, and monsoon.
No in-person appraisal of such works will ever be the same as another, not even for a repeat viewer. A forever facet of mirrored art is its incorporation of the viewer into every glimpse. If you step back your presence will multiply, reflected in hundreds of silver diamonds. Stand close and your scarlet kurta and bright scarf may startle you, fractured amid royal blue, lime, and rust.
An instant’s reflected light–or the absence of sun–also will change each snapshot in time. A courtyard crowd on a sunny day will add dazzling fragments of color and light; a monsoon may yield a scene muted by steam, inhabited by solitary sodden selfies.
The Earth keeps turning.
Love in the Spaces 