The role of the frame in art can refer not only to a material frame bordering an image, but also to a conceptual frame - a text, for instance, which is to serve as a commentary to the visual image. What is the meaning of a frame in our understanding of what we see? Why, in some cases, does it seem necessary, while in other cases artists deliberately remove it?
In Framing Russian Art, Oleg Tarasov investigates the role of the frame both literally, in its function of demarcating a work of art, and conceptually, in the impact a frame has on our understanding of what we see. Tarasov demonstrates the role of the frame both in the organization of an artistic space of a work of art and in the very perception of a visual image, whether it is an icon, a work of architecture, a painting, an etching, or a photograph. On the one hand, the frame may be employed as a way of presenting a visual image, yet on the other it can be used to signal a threshold of perception.
The first part of this book is dedicated to the frame of the Russian icon. Here the author marks out historical and cultural meanings of the icon's frame-shrine, setting and iconostasis. The second part examines Russian and European art through to the twentieth century, paying special attention to Russia's Baroque period, the painting frame of an imperial palace, the famous battle painter Vasily Vereshchagin, and ends with abstract art and Modernism.
A captivating account of the cultural phenomenon of the frame and its ever-changing functions, this book will appeal to students and scholars of Russian culture and art history.
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