Stephanie G. Mathis Visitors to Prado’s latest exhibition might think there was a mistake if they see paintings hanging backward on the wall. They’ll notice simple canvas and wood instead of bright brushstrokes. This is what curator Miguel Angel Blanco wanted them to see. The exhibition,” on the Reverse”, showcases lesser-known sides of famous works of art.
Blanco says that it allows museum visitors in Madrid to enjoy a privilege normally reserved for conservators, artists, and researchers. “The great majority of paintings have always been hung from walls in museums where there’s no chance for people to spy out what’s behind the image and where you’re forbidden to get close to the objects,” he says to the Guardian.
The museum says that “On the Reverse” will run until March 2024 and aims to help visitors develop a “new, more complete relationship with the artist.” Around 100 pieces are on display, with some hung upside down or in reverse. Some of the works are painted reproductions or representations of the reverse of a canvas, while others, turned upside down, are painted images of the backside of a picture.
The opening piece of the exhibition is a recreation based on Diego Velazquez’s 1656 painting Las Meninas. The original is Velazquez’s self-portrait, which is painted like a reflection in a mirror. It is so large that a fifth is the canvas of the subject. Vik Muniz used this image and its physical canvas as a base to recreate Las Meninas’s reverse side. He faithfully mirrored the markings and blemishes of the wood in his 2018 work.
“On the Reverse,” in addition to Muniz’s work, also includes classics like Vincent van Gogh’s Self Portrait as an Artist and Rembrandt’s The Artist in His Studio. Each section focuses on a different concept related to reverse artworks. The Observer reports that one team is dedicated to annotations, inscriptions, and other writings on the reverse of artworks. Another shows the stretchers used for paintings, such as the original cross beams from Pablo Picasso’s Guernica. The back of some works reveals the creative process or an entirely different position. For example, Martin van Meytens’s Kneeling Nun is an 18th-century painting that appears to show a devout woman in prayer. The back of the canvas tells a different story. The nun’s habit has been pulled up, revealing her nude legs and bottom. Stamps and other details can be used to show the history behind an artwork. For example, the frame of a work that reveals its Nazi seizure history.
Blanco told the Guardian that “works of art are 3D.” When we only look at the image of a moment frozen in the past, we gain some information but miss out on much more when we consider the object itself. When you look at a work, its back and frame, I think it’s similar to standing in front of an archaeological find where each layer tells its own story.
