Let’s talk for a little bit about a very neglected part of art: the frame. The frames of artworks are rarely noticed; have you ever heard of a famous frame? But if the frame were absent, we’d probably never hear about the artwork itself. Wonder why? Because the frame tells us what to look at. We’re all familiar with the traditional wooden or rectangular frame. We see these all the time on paintings, drawings, and prints. But have you ever noticed the frame on a piece of sculpture? I can hear you saying, “But sculpture doesn’t have a frame.” Actually it does; and just like the wooden frame around a painting, the frame of a sculpture tells us to pay attention to the artwork. It’s just that the frame around a piece of sculpture doesn’t look like a traditional frame. In fact, the only way that you know it has a frame is because you’re looking at something as if it were a piece of art.
There are all sorts of frames or perhaps we should say “frame qualities” in art. Take this refrigerator note. Isn’t it just an ordinary note stuck on the fridge? Then look at the same words in a slightly different format and context. Those ordinary words have become a poem. They’ve been transformed by a more rigid structure to look like something much more deliberate, something that says “Look at me.” The structure, lack of punctuation, type-set words, the title, the author’s name, all these tell us that the words are not just for one person but are for a much wider audience. These structural changes act as a frame, telling us that we need to pay attention to the words—that the words are for us as viewers, for the world at large. The structure has taken the refrigerator note off the refrigerator and turned it from an ordinary note to an extraordinary group of words: a poem. The structural presentation—the frame—has given the words a separate reality--a "psychical" distance--that allows us to see the words as something more than just a note.
So, anything that directs our attention to something and asks us to view it as an object outside our own reality can be a frame. Think about a vase sitting on a table. This vase appears to be a part of the ordinary world that you and I live in. But what if that vase was over 2000 years old? What if it was a collector’s item, too valuable to be used, so valuable that it was kept in a locked case? This vase, removed from the context of ordinary use, has become an object of value whose role is to be looked at, admired, and treasured rather than used like an ordinary vase. The glass cupboard can be considered its frame. The cupboard has literally moved the teapot from its ordinary place, the kitchen table, and placed it where it can't be used, where its primary function is to be valued and and of itself.
What are some other types of frames? Maybe a better question is what are some other things that can act like a frame, putting distance between you, the viewer, and the object, the artwork? Think about sculpture; for instance, the "David" figure by Michelangelo. How do we know this is not a real person? How do we know it’s an object that commands our attention instead? First, the location of the figure in a museum, a place where we can expect everything to be an artwork, or at least something that can be considered by someone to be an art object. What about the replica of the figure outside the museum in the Florence plaza? The fact that there’s a huge white figure standing above the crowds tells us this is something out of the ordinary, something to be paid attention to. And the size. The sculpture of David is 13.5+ feet tall, not including the pedestal. The incredible size commands our attention and tells us this isn’t real. What about the color? [should address Dwayne Hansen’s figures here.] Well, the David figure is white marble. Both the color, material, and texture tell us that this isn’t a real live person, but the image of a person. Finally, the image is on a pedestal, and the role of a pedestal is to elevate whatever is on it to a position of prominence.
So, all of these things, the size, color, material, texture and pedestal of Michelangelo's "David" all act as frame qualities, demanding that we pay attention to this incredible sculpture. Now that the frame qualities have gotten our attention, we’re able to explore and admire the incredibly skillful stonework of Michelangelo. Changes of size and scale are frequently used to create a difference between our reality and the reality of the artwork. Fantasy works as a frame as well. Think about cartoon figures or science fiction figures. There’s just enough similarity between the real and the fantasy that we can relate to the figures but not enough that we confuse the figures with something that’s actually real. And sometimes, just changing the context, the surroundings of the object, creates enough distance between ourselves and the object that we’re compelled to pay attention to it to examine it for qualities other than usefulness in our immediate reality.
All of these frame qualities separate the object viewed from our own reality of ordinary usefulness and demand that we pay attention to the object, not as ordinary but something apart from the ordinary, something extraordinary. When there’s not enough psychical distance—not enough frame quality—then we have trouble seeing the object as something other than a useful, or in some cases, useless, object. Take for example the teapot we talked about earlier. If that 400-year old priceless antique teapot were just sitting out on a kitchen table during breakfast, we probably wouldn’t recognize it as anything other than just an ordinary teapot. Why? Because of a lack of frame quality. There’s nothing setting the teapot apart as anything other than ordinary. On the other hand, let’s put the priceless [can price/value create a frame quality?] teapot back in the locked, glass display case. For those of us who don’t know much about antique teapots, we may still see it as just another teapot, even if there’s a sign by the teapot that says how old it is, how valuable it is, etc. Why? We don’t have enough knowledge to appreciate its worth. Sometimes a lack of information creates too much distance between us and the object [for instance, Arnolfini Wedding]. In this case, there’s TOO MUCH psychical distance between us and the object. This is why a good [educational?] museum will give you information to help you understand what you’re looking at. [Perhaps through a docent or an audio-guided tour] And good information to tell you why you should pay attention to an artwork. Without a frame, without the right amount of psychical distance, we won’t recognize an object as something out of the ordinary, something extraordinary. This is why we occasionally [work on this] hear that a priceless painting by Picasso has been purchased for $25 at a garage sale after sitting on someone’s attic for 50 years or more. Don’t we wish we were the ones who discovered it?
