James G. Harper

What's on the other side of that Michaelangelo drawing? It may be another drawing, it might even be a document. Other than curators, collectors and art historians, most people never see that other side. A sheet in a frame can present only one side to the viewer.

As the terms are used in the art world, there is an implication that the recto, or front, is somehow better than the verso. But is this really so? Artists themselves, in seizing on an already-used sheet of paper to make another drawing, seldom if ever declare, "This is the recto, this the verso"!

This book is the catalog of an exhibit at the Harvard University Art Museum that considered the question of the relationship between the two sides.… (meer)