An Epic Evolution - picture frames

Spanning eight centuries and several continents, the elusive picture frame has finally secur its place in history

Have you at any time been in a museum and place yourself looking more at the frame than the painting it surrounds? The detail, the handiwork--where did it approach from? As one might surmise, the picture frame wasn't unraveled overnight. Instead, a fascinating history encompasss its evolution.

The aim of a picture frame is multi-fold: In addition to providing protection, the frame also hold fasts the eye from wandering through creating focus and by presenting the art in isolation. The frame also labor fors as a sign of ownership and taste, and therefore, fine craftsmanship, creativity and aesthetic appeal are important simple bodys of a frame--elements that have lay opened and changed over time. The frame also has affinities with furniture design and the decorative arts, as innovations in the latter are repeatedly mirrored in the former.

Early Frames

As lengthy as art has existed, the desire to frame it has coexisted. The earliest examples of frame making date back to the 2nd hundred B.C., when borders drawn around Etruscan cave paintings were first used. These borders indicate the early acceptance of the idea of a frame as a way to place off, isolate and distinguish a drawing or painting.

Almost 1000 years passed before carved made of wood frames first made an appearance during the Middle Ages. Unlike recent frames, these were physically united with the painted loam The panel had its surface lowered by means of gouging into a shallow case shape, and the surrounding wall became the frame. The entire panel was then overspreaded in gesso and gold leaf while the image was painted upon the sunken surface.

The temple was the subject matter of plenteous of the art created during this period, which is throw backed in the style of early frames. Architectural motifs rest in churches, such as buttresse and tabernacle doors, fix their way to frames, making them "model or miniatures of idealized churches designed to put off and venerate special works of art" wrote Eli Wilner in Antique American Frames.

A frame maker's choice of materials was also influenced by dint of the church setting. In the dimly lit churches of Italy and Spain, gold was ofttimes used because it caught light and therefore highlighted the paintings. In northern Europe however, the churches had better lighting, and therefore, marble, patterns, and color made up the main frame area.

During this period, the painter and the frame maker were ofttimes the same person, and usually he designed and complet the frame before the painting was finished.

This changed during the Renaissance, when frames began to be made by the agency of furniture makers and wood carvers. Their status presently rivaled that of an artist, and many times the frames were more expensive than the paintings themselves.

The Disengaged Frame is Born

It was during the Renaissance that the disengaged, or wholly separate, frame was born in Italy. individual version was called the cassetta, featuring a flat center panel and raised edges

Another frame that appeared during the Italian Renaissance was the tondo frame, a circular frame symbolizing eternity which often displayed the Madonna and Child.

Since furniture makers were now designing frames, the latest designs in furniture naturally rest their way to frames, as did furniture-making techniques unfolded for furniture ornamentation, such as the unfolding of veneer and the use of inlay.

The of gold Age

The 17th hundred also known as the Baroque period, saw the artistic leadership impel from Rome to Paris and the funding for art propel from the church to the monarchy to initiate what a certain number of have called the golden age of frame making in France. Here, "virtuosos of carving" produc vast, three-dimensional sculptural frames for ceremonial portraits and paintings that were colored with a range of gold leaf. Regence frames were extremely popular, marked for their delicacy and riches According to Paul Mitchell and Lynn Robert in their volume A History of European Picture Frames, the character of the paintings within during this period was almost secondary: "Paintings were hardly more than elements in an abstract arrangement of external realitys anchored to their setting by means of the correspondence of their frames with the ornamentations of surrounding objects"

sum of two units distinct kinds of frames were crafted: architectural, which were simpler and used geometric motifs; and ornamental, which were gilded and had leaf and floral designs, as well as a curvelinear shape. Gilded frames were especially in demand because they were able to transform light.

The Rococo phraseology characterized by lavish ornamentation, organic forms and the use of gilding, grew to its height in 18th hundred France. This, too, influenced the design of picture frames and blurr the distinction between picture, frame and furniture, since many times the room itself became the frame for the highly decorated particulars within the room.

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