Framework

A list (sometimes also called framework) is a (usually rectangular) frame in painting in which a painting is confirmed. In earlier times, making lists was a profession apart and sometimes the picture frame was even more impressive than the painting itself.

The function of a list is to protect the painting. It also provides extra strength to the sometimes loose framework of stretcher beds that holds the fabric up. The framework also has a visual function, since some compositional items come out better if there is a list around them. Moreover, it is generally considered beautiful to have a frame around a painting because unfinished sides are covered, as well as the folds at the corners of the canvas. Paintings on wood or copper are often framed. When working on wood (panels), the panel was often manufactured simultaneously with the frame and then painted together.

Lists have been adapted to fashion over the centuries; in addition to simple wooden frames, gilded frames were created in the 16th century that were put in wood or modeled with plaster in the busy baroque style. Avant-garde artists from around 1900 turned against the use of heavy and pompous frames. The list had become an ornament that fought for attention with the work of art, and the rich bourgeois saw the list with the painting more as a decoration of their interior than as a work of art.

After the Second World War, the Amsterdam museum director Willem Sandberg removed the lists of many of the works exhibited in the Stedelijk Museum and replaced them with uniform frames, which would not divert attention from the paintings. Only after the exhibition "Prize the list" in the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum, more attention was paid to lists. The insight grew that a list selected by the artist could not be separated from a painting. Art historians also received more attention for the list as a work of art or an article of art.

Many contemporary art is no longer presented in lists because the aesthetic function of a list is rejected by many painters and the canvases would come out better without a list. Even with cloths with frame, this is usually of modest dimensions compared to the gilded frames from the baroque.

With us you are free to choose whether or not you want to use a list. We then discuss this together after making contact.