Here’s something that will have you bending all the classic books in your house: fore-edge painting, the art of hiding illustrations and paintings on the outer edges of a book. The technique, which is said to date back to as early as the 1650s, was recently brought to the webs attention by Colossal, who shared brilliant examples of the result in GIF form.
The technique works by bending the edges of the book to expose just a small sliver of the page’s face. Drawing or painting from that angle leaves only a small portion of the image on each page – not enough to notice on each individual page, but enough to form an entire scene when bent back to the same angle they were painted from.
The GIFs on Colossal come from Colleen Theisen who helps out with outreach and instruction at the Special Collections & University Archives at University of Iowa, and form a series comprising the four seasons on four books from 1837. Each details beautiful examples of life through the year – in a time where people were far more connected to the land and changing seasons around them. See the examples for Autumn (above) and Winter (below), then check out the other two on Colossal.
Below: Two other examples of the fore-edge painting technique:
via Colossal
