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Art contains information about society. Smiles in paintings, for instance, reflect social attitudes about smiling and the quality of dental care available. Jones (2000) showed this in a study of a painting by Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun, a self‐portrait with her daughter, who is smiling with lips slightly parted.¹ As described in the media,

The toothy grin, every politician’s gleaming weapon, was considered a sign of dementia until the exhibition of a radical painting in 1787… A study by Colin Jones…uncovers the birth of the modern smile. Until Mme Vigée‐Lebrun, [sic] icons such as the Mona Lisa had preferred to stay tight‐lipped, for good reason. Baring one’s teeth was considered rude, lower‐class and a possible sign of madness.

Dental care was also of such poor quality that few wished to be depicted with rotten teeth. Professor Jones said: “Teeth quality was at its lowest ebb in the 18th century because all classes were drinking tea or coffee and eating chocolate”… Nevertheless…many significant French figures began to allow their portraits to reveal their teeth. Professor Jones believes that this was due to the radical transformation in the practice of dentistry and a consumer boom in the range of dental products available. (The Times, 2000: 10)

If you wanted to learn about the position of ethnic minorities in society, rather than oral hygiene, you might watch television shows and see how minority groups are portrayed. You might focus on crime shows, counting the police officers of various ethnicities, and coding the ethnic origin of the criminals or victims (see Mastro and Robinson, 2000). The reflection approach rests on the idea that art tells us something about society. Television crime shows reflect racism; portraits reflect, among other things, beliefs about the best way to smile.

The reflection approach to the sociology of art encompasses a wide variety of research sharing in common the belief that art mirrors (or is conditioned, or determined, by) society.² Research in this tradition looks at artworks in order to learn more about society. The approach has a long and venerable history in sociology. This is not surprising, as its main focus is sociological—to learn about society. It has been thoroughly criticized, notably by Albrecht (1954) more than half a century ago; nevertheless, it remains an important way for observers to approach art.