PICTURE FRAMING

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22005, 11 January 1935, Page 3

PICTURE FRAMING

THE MODERN METHOD

The days fire gone when every oil painting was surrounded by wide, heavily embossed gilt frames, and every water-colour placed in a narrower counterpart,.

" Frames by ... in collaboration with the painter." This information, as a pendant to a catalogue at a recent " one woman " art show in New Bond Street, is indicative of the revolution that has taken place in the artistic and difficult craft of framing pictures with success, states a London writer. Modern rooms not only demand modern pictures, but the picture also, whether it be oil, water colour, woodcut, etching or print, must be framed in accordance with its setting. The frame should be the link between the picture and its surroundings; and there is a great art in choosing a. frame that meets the artistic calls of the subject and the setting in which the picture if. destined to hang. One of the first of the modern artists to foresee the result of modernist furnishing on the work of the artist with regard to wall decoration was Mr. Henry Massey, who painted a number of beautiful flower pieces in his later years. For these he designed ultra modern square frames in cube form, with a chromium plate surface. In some of these frames the chromium is daringly stark in its own flat silveriness, in' others the metal is hammered and slightly oxidised. This simple type of flat frame is in keeping with the style of work of many of the artists of today, and is also suitable in the rooms in which modernist feeling plays so important a part. Tho chosen media may be wood, metal, mirror or glass. Some of the newest frames are made in mirror and wood. Newer still are the all-glasß frames made in coloured glass, the corners mitred and screwed with cut crystal studs in the shape of small rosettes. For a .flower study a frame of pink glass the cloudy colour of rose quartz accented the colour scheme of the painted flowers most successfully. The frame, about three inches in width, in this instance is a simple design in three curved " steps." In the same degree a frame of opal glass can be used to bring out certain colour tones and high lignts in a picAn out-of-door picture that is full of light calls for a frame which bestows the atmosphere of light in which it has been painted. The question of width of frame, of course, depends upon the size of the work of art; but it will be found that the new idea of having an inch, or even less, bevel of mirror glass as an inner mount against a wood frame painted in mottled ivory or one of the off whites is one effective method. _ This mirror glass is now made in colours; there is a peach mirror and a darker smoke mirror, which used in this way with a dark-toned wood, should lend itself well to these modern methods of framing. It would interesting to experiment with portrait studies on these lines. In framing flat colour prints, whether the subject be of the decorative flower or landscape order, or the delicate Japanese, Chinese or Persian prints, which are so full of beautiful colour and intricate design, a simple, narrow, fairly dark beading used with a. fairly wide mount, can be commended. This treatment conveys the panel form winch is so well suited to this type of wall decoration. Mounts are all-important, and the greatest care should be cxercised in choosing the exact tint to bring out tho basic tone and colour values of the picture.