The five senses: sight

Artists had been handing the sense of sight a mirror for centuries before Makart. In The Lady and the Unicorn, tapestries woven around 1500 and now in the Musée de Cluny in Paris, a seated lady holds one up so the unicorn can look at its own reflection. Makart kept the old emblem and changed the rest. His Sight is a standing nude with long fair hair, gold chains at her throat and hips, and a jewelled ornament pinned in her hair. She raises a small oval hand mirror to her shoulder, yet her eyes have drifted away from the glass. A palm leaf fans out behind her against a patch of blue sky. The Belvedere puts the nudity down to the taste of the time. He painted the panel between 1872 and 1879, and beside her stands a tall carved pedestal.