Date: c. 1508?

"The mind of the painter should be like a mirror which always takes the colour of the thing that it reflects and which is filled by as many images as there are things placed before it."

— Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (1452-1519)

Date: 1589

"And this phantasie may be resembled to a glasse as hath bene sayd, whereof there be many tempers and manner of makinges, as the perspectiues doe acknowledge, for some be false glasses and shew thinges otherwise than they be in deede, and others right as they be in deede, neither fairer nor foule...

— Puttenham, George (1529-1590/91)

Date: c. 1603

"But do you suppose, when all the approaches and entrances to men's minds are beset and blocked by the most obscure idols -- idols deeply implanted and, as it were, burned in -- that any clean and polished surface remains in the mirror of the mind on which the genuine natural light of things can ...

— Bacon, Sir Francis, Lord Verulam (1561-1626)