Claude Glass

My recent paintings of landscapes taken from old black and white photographs seem to recollect the images bought to life through the old devices 'claude glasses'. These small black mirrors were used by artists, travellers and connoisseurs of landscape and reflected the surroundings transforming them into dark simplified painterly depictions of the reflections. They became a way to frame a landscape before images could be fixed with photography. 

The photographer Emma Weislander produced a series of photographs based around the concept of Claude Glasses, depicting dark landscapes of the lake district.The darkness and circular frames recreate the technique of the Claude Glass.

William Gilpin an artist and user of the Claude Glass wrote about the images created by these contraptions saying 'they are like the visions of the imagination; or the brilliant landscapes of a dream. Forms and colours, of the brightest array fleet before us.'