The webcam is currently offline following the closure of the hotel. We hope to restore normal service shortly - apologies for any disappointment
An image of Tintern Abbey in Monmouthshire is currently displayed on a 40-inch Claude Mirror on the front lawn of the Abbey Hotel. A high-resolution IQeye webcam is focussed on the mirror's image.
Read more about this camera on the official Claude Mirror website - please note that the image may be affected by weather and technical conditions. A typical view of the abbey is shown here for comparison purposes.
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Image provided by kind permission of Alex McKay and CS Matheson.
The creators of the Claude mirror installation, artist Alex McKay and historian CS Matheson, explain its history:
The Claude mirror was an optical instrument widely popular in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was named after its ability to transform a landscape view into something reminiscent of a painting by Claude Lorraine.
These small, black, convex mirrors, usually hand-sized, were used extensively by artists and tourists to contemplate, reconfigure and transcribe landscape. They were wielded on picturesque tours of Britain, the Continent and North America, and utilized by influential writers and theorists such as Thomas Gray, the Rev William Gilpin, Uvedale Price and Thomas West.
In areas such as the Wye Valley or the Lake District, tourists could purchase maps and mirrors at opticians, stationers and tourist attractions. At prescribed viewing stations (still marked on our Ordnance Survey maps), they would turn their backs to the scene, hold up a mirror, and look at the framed and transformed view.
The distorted perspective, altered colour saturation and compressed tonal values of the reflection resulted in a loss of detail, but an overall unification of form and line. The Claude Mirror essentially edited a natural scene, making its scale and diversity manageable, throwing its picturesque qualities into relief and - crucially - making it much easier to draw and record.
In this project, we have created a modern-day viewing station through the installation of a large Claude mirror and a high-resolution webcam. The mirror creates a view of Tintern Abbey, a well-known picturesque viewpoint, and is a response to many existing historical paintings, prints and drawings of the Abbey.
The Claude mirror may also be visited in person free of charge on the grounds of the Abbey Hotel.
Alex McKay, CS Matheson - May 2006
McKay and Matheson reside in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Matheson teaches Romantic Literature at the University of Windsor and McKay is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Humanities Research Group at the university.
For more about the project, see www.claudemirror.com*
*The BBC is not responsible for the content of external websites
