The Importance of a Frame

Blake Gopnik an art critic for the Washington Post has been running a series on selecting a single detail form a work of art and discussing it.  He recently wrote on the the importance of framing, and focuses on James McNeil Whistler and a painting,titled Miss Lilliian Woakes which hangs in the Phillips (see image).  Gopnik states that Whistler believed the frame was just important as the art.  In framing, the artwork can be enhanced or diminished by what surrounds it.

Gopnik states

If Whistler was a major player in the birth of modern art, he was a giant in the world of modern frames. To get at the most significant detail in this art object, your eyes have to take in more rather than less.

In place of the elaborate curlicues that polluted framing in Whistler's time -- that still pollute most museum frames, including many at the Phillips -- the "reed moldings" surrounding the Phillips portrait are bold and crisp and stripped down. In this classic "Whistler frame" (the artist gave his name to an entire genre) a relentless swell of gilded wood repeats from the far outer edge to almost where molding meets canvas.

There's a positive reading of this: You can imagine the frame pulling outward from the center, like rays spreading wide from a light. Whistler's moldings want to help the meek Miss Lillian open out into a world beyond the edges of her painted field. Take that reading of this frame, and you can almost see her eyes opening wider, her mouth spreading into an expansive smile.

 To read the full Washington Post article on Whistler and frames, click HERE.