Specular Reflections: John Brett and the Mirror of Venus

• Main Author: James Mussell
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Open Library of Humanities 2013-10-01
• Series: 19 : Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century
• Subjects: John Brett; Pre-Raphaelite; landscape; art; astronomy; Richard Anthony Proctor; John Ruskin; Venus
• Online Access: http://www.19.bbk.ac.uk/articles/670

<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:RelyOnVML /> <o:AllowPNG /> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves /> <w:TrackFormatting /> <w:PunctuationKerning /> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas /> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF /> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-GB</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables /> <w:SnapToGridInCell /> <w:WrapTextWithPunct /> <w:UseAsianBreakRules /> <w:DontGrowAutofit /> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark /> <w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp /> <w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables /> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx /> <w:Word11KerningPairs /> <w:CachedColBalance /> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math" /> <m:brkBin m:val="before" /> <m:brkBinSub m:val=" " /> <m:smallFrac m:val="off" /> <m:dispDef /> <m:lMargin m:val="0" /> <m:rMargin m:val="0" /> <m:defJc m:val="centerGroup" /> <m:wrapIndent m:val="1440" /> <m:intLim m:val="subSup" /> <m:naryLim m:val="undOvr" /> </m:mathPr></w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal">When John Brett, the Pre-Raphaelite painter and astronomer, presented his theory of specular reflection in Venus to the Royal Astronomical Society, he provoked a controversy over both the constitution of the planet and the learned society. Brett thought Venus was most likely a ball of molten metal enclosed in a glass envelope and this raised the tantalizing possibility that it might function as a mirror, reflecting back an image of the earth. A few months later another 'Mirror of Venus 'was displayed at the Grosvenor Gallery. The surface of Edward Burne-Jones's painting provides a different model of reflection but one that illuminates the space of the Royal Astronomical Society and the practice of astronomy more broadly. Using Burne-Jones’s painting as a point of comparison, I argue that Brett’s astronomy put into play a desiring, viewing subject that was disavowed in his landscape art.