Diplomacy, art, smoke and mirrors (Photo blog)

Diplomacy and mirrors: This is the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles near Paris, France. Built between 1678–1684, it has the site of numerous historical and state occasions, inspiring many now famous paintings. At the time, the Venetian Republic held trade secrets in glass mirror manufacturer, so, following the economic philosophy of mercantilism, the French monarchy poached workers to France to build the huge mirrors. Legend has it the Venice sent agents in an unsuccessful attempt to poison the workers and keep its secrets. (And you thought the language in your non-compete agreement was draconian. Of course, assassination back then was just diplomacy by other means. Then again, this might just be an urban legend.)

We’re wrapping our mirrors, animals, consciousness and data theme. (And maybe also our aristocracy and mirrors theme. Or our artwork and mirrors theme.) Although a beautiful work of art, the Hall of Mirrors has more to do with history, politics, diplomacy and perhaps economics than data. (We already covered the connection between data and politics in our earlier social progress post, symbolized by the painting of the Dutch schoolhouse. We’d have used perhaps buildings in Athens to symbolize politics or democracy, but they had no mirrors. Somehow it makes sense for diplomacy to take place in a hall of mirrors.)

We already covered elephants as the second-to-last group of animals known to recognize themselves in the mirror. (Well, OK, we didn’t cover elephants, but we started off this section with mammoths, which are closely related but extinct.) That leaves one, very special animal group to go. And one more mirror post: there is one type of mirror that is used in the manufacture of electronics, and thus intersects with our story of data.

(A version of this article was first published as a photo post on our IG feed.)

Photo: Myrabella / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA-3.0