In the 16th century, an Italian artist named Cesare Vecellio began to use the long “fourth” outside edge of books as a canvas on which to make small paintings.
Fore-edge painting had been done since the tenth century as a way of identifying books, but Vacellio may have been the first to push them into art.
We never imagined those edges as a canvas. It has us wishing for lovely, somewhat mysterious bonus on the edge of our books…
…And looking around at the many spaces waiting in plain sight for our creative mark.
Discovered on the Bieneke Library instagram
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