THE PICTURE FRAME, as it exists today, is derived from the doorway or entrance
to temples, palaces and cathedrals. From a functional viewpoint, it might have
been more practical to place doors at the sides of these buildings, but the
importance of the door framing an impressive picture of the interior was never
overlooked.
The need to enhance a picture or bas-relief with a frame is evidenced from the
earliest times. The first decorations were necessarily crude; a raised line
sometimes being the only ornament.
The earliest examples of frame-like decorations or borders bear a great resemblance
to door frames. They were composed of two columns surmounted by a con-necting
entablature and this form persisted into the 15th century. Even the decorations
painted by the artists around the edges of pictures before the intro-duction of
movable frames were similar in form.
As a matter of fact, frames without pictures eventu-ally came into existence
because the desire to embel-lish with Moldings was so strong. Rooms in palaces
were arbitrarily paneled with Moldings and their vestigial remains are to be seen
today in the senselessly paneled walls of apartments in modern cities.
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History Of Picture Framing
