The frame of Frederic Lord Leighton’s painting

The importance of a frame presenting paintings is often overlooked, while in fact these four borders have their own stories to tell.

After finishing a painting, the next thing on the mind of an artist or collector may be the design of a frame to enhance the appearance of the piece, or at least one that does not take away from its grandeur.

Regarded as the window between viewers and the canvas, picture frames have a long and unique history.

At the Presidential Palace, for example, Raden Saleh’s painting, Harimau Minum (Drinking Tigers), painted in 1863, has had its frame changed several times over the years. It originally had a frame with rectangular inner sides. In the hands of a Dutch collector, the four angles were rounded.

About 90 years later, the painting went to the palace collection of president Sukarno, who felt the rounded corners of the frame encroached the image. In 1963, he ordered Lim Wasim, a palace painter, to replace the frame with rectangular inner sides. However, in 2017, before appearing at an exhibition entitled Senandung Ibu Pertiwi (Tunes of the Motherland) at the National Gallery in Central Jakarta, its frame was again changed, with only the upper angles rounded.

Discussions took place over the frame alteration. The Dutch collector got into a debate with Raden Saleh as the painter was opposed to the idea, saying rounded corners would cover part of his work.

When Sukarno gave instructions for the frame to be changed, Lim Wasim tried to convince him otherwise.

“It was [a] serious [order] as I had to restore Saleh’s painting after being partly covered by the frame,” he said.

It turned out that the 2017 exhibition committee also had to go through a meeting with the palace art collection management and curators.

The importance of a frame for a painting has given birth to a number of arguments. A Dutch saying during the Renaissance goes: Een schilderij walt of saat met de lijst (the fate of a painting depends on its frame). Picture frames were considered vital at the time. They were likened to windows through which people could observe images. The more attractive the “windows”, the more exalted the painted figures would be.

However, the perception of painters and society toward picture frames had begun to shift. When modern art was growing in West Europe in the mid-19th century, frames were seen from different viewpoints. Therefore, besides serving as “windows”, they were also considered an element of paintings, acting as a complement, protector, delineator and bridge between paintings and space.

A rare exhibition at the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, presented hundreds of well-known paintings from all over the world with their frames specially designed by their painters or other individuals. The display, “In Perfect Harmony”, featured framed paintings created during the period of 1850-1920. In addition to their physical forms, the opinions of several experts about picture frames were also conveyed and discussed.

Curator Eva Mendgen then stated, “Based on artistic theory, picture frames function to give certainty about the specifications of paintings, after all aspects have been arranged in unity, integrity and perfection”.

Artistic author Karl Philipp Moritz begged to differ, though. “Paintings in fact have a completeness of their own. Frames only explain that the paintings themselves are finished and complete,” he said.

Meanwhile, art observer Friedrich Schlegel maintained, “Every work of art bears its own frame. Every painting has the right to determine its own frame. Even painters may paint frames on their canvases.”

Observers are free to argue but world painters have their own assumptions according to their experiences.

The late Van Gogh as a poor artist positioned frames as special friends and protectors of his paintings. He frequently crafted picture frames himself. To a letter dated November 12, 1888, Van Gogh attached a sketch of the frame for his painting, The Shower. The letter was addressed to Theo, his younger brother and promoter.

Some of Van Gogh’s works had specially designed frames. One such frame was fixed to a painting in his Japanese series, The Bridge in the Rain (1887), containing stamps and writings with a semblance of Japanese characters.

Pointillist painter George Seurat asserted that paintings and frames should be created simultaneously. The same principle was followed by late painters Franz von Stuck, Edgar Degas and Gustav Klimt. Stuck and Klimt considered frames a very significant element. This was logical as both artists had been trained in applied art, designating frame designs as a basic element.

According to decorative art expert Joseph August Lux, the Vienna Secession, a decorative parts company, made a major contribution to the development of the styles and ideas of picture frames. The company translated and processed the ideas of painters who placed orders. For decades, the Vienna Secession promoted public belief in the independent existence of frames. In this way, frames were seen as art on their own.

Picture frames have also often served as an inseparable part of a painting. Dutch painter Jan Toorop, who once resided in then-Batavia (now Jakarta), produced his beautiful work in his Play of Lines (1893). Along with Joosstens, a picture framemaker, he decorated his broad frame with exotic colors to match the principal object of his painting.

Frames come in rectangular and circular form. However, there are those freely shaped to suit the main objects of paintings. The frame of Salvador Dali’s Couple with Heads Full of Clouds (1936) is the most popular example. The same is true of Rene Magritte’s Representation (1937). As a man who admired women, Magritte crafted a thin frame to depict the body of his female icon. Total veneration of frames was also shown by Joan Miro through his painting, Portrait of a Man in a Late Nineteenth-Century Frame (1950).

In Indonesia, a number of painters are designing their frames themselves, such as Le Mayeur, who resides in Bali. The others are Soeparto, Nyoman Gunarsa and Mario Blanco, the son of legendary painter Antonio Blanco. Antonio frequently receives orders for frames. “A typical frame produced by Antonio measuring 1-meter could cost US$3,000,” said Mario.

It is thus evident that picture frames aren’t fixed merely as auxiliaries. The application of frames demands art, sensibility and some knowledge of painting character. Frames are highly valued and expensive.

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