Before electric light, illumination was fickle. In galleries and museums today, we view art under direct, flat, electric light that shines steadily without variation on each piece. It’s a valid take, but one that might be unfair to the framers who built them. Photo by: Exotica.im/Universal Images Group via Getty Images “Somehow there with the gold frames and all, there was an elegance about it all, that did not please me, but that I could not refuse, and in a way it destroyed oil paintings for me.” Painting of a ‘La Grand Odalisque’ in the Louvre. “The Louvre at first was only gold frames to me,” she wrote. Gertrude Stein’s impressions of the Louvre in her Lectures in America immortalized the modern sentiment that gilt frames are gaudy and ostentatious.

It delineates the separation between the inside of the house and the outside world, the interior life of the observer and everything else going on “out there.” Window frames are pure architecture yet also a precursor to some of the same logic that birthed picture frames: a true marriage of art, architecture and decoration. When you look out a window, you see an image that shifts depending on your viewing angle, making the frame the medium that defines the image. ‘The Calvary,’ 1440-1445, by Giovanni da Fiesole, known as Fra Angelico (ca 1400-1455), fresco. They were furthermore freestanding and functioned as altars, rising up from the ground and offering the humble worshiper a vivid window onto full-color recreations of the religious scenes described by the clergy in their sermons.

These frames were architectural pieces of stone, often in the shape of the same church where they were housed. Medieval contracts highlight the lesser importance of the painter and the primacy of the carver-it was the carver who earned the highest commissions, largely from churches who employed the artisans to glorify God and the church itself. Instead, a painter was a craftsman brought in to fill an elaborate sculptural edifice constructed by a master carver with an image he had little role in composing. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Imagesīack then, there were hardly any celebrity painters of the sort we have now. Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images) Paris, Musée Du Louvre. The pride she takes in her work is so unusual and so commendable.Large Round Pieta, 1400-1410, attributed to Jean Malouel (ca 1365-1415), tempera and gold on panel, diameter 65 cm. She went above and beyond the call of duty, helped me so much and fit me in when I needed work ASAP for an NYC gallery.

“I always have had my work framed down in the city, but this year discovered how fantastic Ginny and her crew are. Our clients include many established and prolific area artists, collectors, local businesses, city and state agencies, antique dealers, gallery owners and, of course, your friends and neighbors. Whether it’s your child’s first masterpiece-or your latest fine art investment-you’ll appreciate our personal service and our attention to detail. Our talented staff is dedicated to the careful, timely completion of every project, large or small. Both Catskill Art & Office Supply locations have complete, full-service Custom Picture Frame Shops on-premises, offering the most comprehensive selection of mouldings and mat samples in the Hudson Valley. We have hundreds of ready-made frames and mats in stock.

Framers nyc