Why were mirrors and paintings hung at an angle in the past?

Surely, many of us have noticed more than once that in some houses, paintings and mirrors hang at a slight angle. But it is unlikely that at least someone thought what kind of strange way of fixing this is. Especially such a solution could often be seen in rural areas in the homes of the elderly. True, and now this practice is still observed in some places.

It’s a tradition or a habit - it’s a little unclear, but it arose back in the days of Tsarist Russia. And not only in our homeland they were fastened in this way.

Spoiler - there is absolutely no magic here.

Why were mirrors hung at an angle?

So, such an arrangement for a modern person seems very incomprehensible and even a little strange. This is especially true of the mirror - this is inconvenient, given that usually this item was placed almost under the ceiling. Well, what can you see there? But for some reason people chose this way. It turns out that everything is very simple.

Let's go back to tsarist Russia. If we talk about a mirror, then in those days not everyone could afford this piece of furniture, because it was very expensive. The maximum that ordinary people could afford was fragments. For a simple worker, to buy a whole and a large mirror, one would have to spend more than one salary. Those who became the happy owner of a chic item treated it very carefully and carefully, once again being afraid to even breathe in its direction. Here, in order not to break the mirror - by accident or on purpose - they hung it as high as possible. But why is it tilted?

In fact, you yourself understand that you can’t even look into a mirror that hangs the devil knows where. Except the other side of the ceiling. Although people knew little about optics, they found out by experience that if you hang it at an angle to the floor, you can see yourself in full growth.

Already in the USSR, mirrors began to be made at many factories, and therefore they ceased to be a luxury item and a sign of wealth. Absolutely all citizens could buy one, or even several. But habit and tradition is a serious thing and practically indelible from memory. Getting rid of it is not so easy. By inertia, the location of the mirrors remained the same.

There is, however, a mystical explanation of why the mirror was hung at an angle. It was believed that seeing oneself not in full growth is a bad sign, and therefore it was hung in such a way as to consider oneself as a whole.

And what about the pictures?

Yes, in the past, both paintings and photographs were also hung at a slight slope. But here is a slightly different reason. It was believed that this placement allows you to better see the image, since there will be no glare on it, and dust is not collected so intensively.

By the way, have you noticed that in many museums the paintings hang in this way?