Unfolding Images: Lateral Reversal, Art History, and Early Modern European Printmaking

Abstract

Although left-right reversal is intrinsic to many image-making technologies, art history has paid limited attention so far to the wide range of its operational and theoretical implications. Focusing on the layered production of meaning characterizing early modern prints, this essay examines the variety of attitudes that existed toward lateral reversal in Western printmaking and how they have been assessed by art history. By engaging with intersecting perspectives from disciplinary discourses, it ultimately advocates for the historical and theoretical significance of those images that exist in either of their possible lateral orientations: images that unfold themselves as they migrate across media as well as through the imagination of artists and viewers alike.