Surface Beauty: Photographic Reflections on Glass and China

Albert Renger-Patzsch... Glasses (c.1927 from the book Die Welt ist Schön, gelatin silver photograph). From the exhibition Surface Beauty: Photographic Reflections on Glass and China at The National Gallery of Australia. "...The mysterious qualities of glass are explored by many of the photographers in this exhibition. Glass can seem to mysteriously emit light rather than merely refract and reflect it. Its translucence can make it seem like a substance halfway between the material plane and a spiritual one. Nearly every culture has practised that of scrying, of staring into glass or dark mirrors, crystals or water to tell fortunes, to see what was usually hidden – to speculate comes from the same root as speculum, the Latin word for mirror."