The 19th-century painter, Edgar Degas (1834-1917) remarked that “the frame is the pimp of painting; it enhances it, but it must never shine at the painting’s expense.” The Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset (1893-1955) clarified this idea when he wrote “a picture without a frame has the air about it of a naked, despoiled man. Its contents seem to spill out over the four sides of the canvas and dissolve into the atmosphere.”
When contemplating a work of art, I think it’s commonplace to think away its framing device, whether it is a literal frame or even an ideological framing device.
In terms of Fashion, haute couture runway shows can be interpreted as framing devices. The framework of the runway show is the arena that functions as a safe haven for artists to translate their wildest, most provocative dreams and fantasies into a 3-5 minute story that is told through elaborate design and costume. In many respects, a lot of the designs experienced on the runway are not suitable (aesthetically, functionally) for everyday, ready-to-wear fashion. We require dissolution and simplification…boundaries.
While boundaries are no doubt a good thing, they are even better when they don’t “shine” on their own—at the artwork’s expense.
Find your arena in which to operate; live and create fully.
Nota bene: The Post- girls are not advocates for prostitution, in its most widely used definition.
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- Snoop Dogg as Huggy Bear, Starsky and Hutch
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- Louis XIII Style Frames
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- Alexander McQueen, Spring 2010
