Eva Mendgen
The Art of Frame: The Example of Expressionist Masterpieces / Rahmenkunst am Beispiel expressionistischer Meisterwerke, (ed. Werner Murrer), Hartung-Gorre Verlag, Konstanz 2006, 36 S.

Introduction (Historicism)

Ideals

The question of the "right” frame is, at least since the time of Wilhelm von Bode, one of the most difficult in the daily business of museums and collections. Bode was the first art historian to interpret the frame, "for general art historical and technical reasons” ["aus allgemeinen kunsthistorischen und kunsttechnischen Rücksichten”], as an essential complement to the image. In 1898, he published the first history of the picture frame in the journal "Pan". He focused on the frame’s variety of manifestations and functions since the beginnings of European panel painting. The legendary museum curator became not just a historian of frames in the service of the Old Masters, but a passionate collector. The paintings of the Berliner Gemäldegalerie, entrusted to him in 1890, had been framed in the classical style in the early 19th century, under the aegis of the architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel. Bode saw this as a homogenization, and over the years he succeeded in furnishing parts of the collection with original frames. This was an achievement in itself, because beautiful old frames were rare even then.
Bode accepted good copies as well, but the production of those was also anything but easy. Originals were needed, and expert frame makers, familiar with the traditional techniques. According to Bode, in framing, "high art and handcraft” [»hohe Kunst und Handwerk«] had worked hand in hand for centuries. With the 19th century and the age of industrialization, everything had changed: the artists left framing increasingly, said Bode, "as an insignificant or even base thing to the artisans” ["als eine gleichgültige oder gar verächtliche Sache den Handwerkern”]. Only gold-framed pictures were admitted to official exhibitions, a rule in force from Paris to London, from Moscow to New York. The picture frame had been degraded to a mere ordering tool for mass exhibitions, and the majority of painters and frame makers to suppliers of an expanding "art industry”. In the face of this fatal trend the Austrian Museum for Art and Industry in Vienna assembled what was probably the first collection of samples of old frames – here the example of a framed painting – published, in 1892, by its director Jacob von Falke in a deluxe edition. It was supposed to set the benchmark for "carvers and frame makers” ["Schnitzer und Rahmenfabrikanten”], counteracting "fashion and dilettantism” ["Mode und Dilettantismus«]. It is worth mentioning that today the work of handpicked frame makers who pursue exclusive ideals of craftsmanship is defined by collections of historical model-samples. ...


Fotos: Cover (by Michael Hofstätter),Werner Murrer Rahmen: team and studio in Munich

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