by: Peter Roberts

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.