This rings a bell when looking at a plain and insignificant 1913 drawing by Egon Schiele featured in one of Christie’s February sales. Here’s a detail of the drawing and part (!) of the profuse commentary:

Stehende Frau mit Schuen und Strümpfen is notable for its use of electrifying ultramarine pigment that animates the figure and accentuates the textural variation between hair, clothing and delicately tinted flesh. By contrasting the soft, fluid contours of the model’s pale body against the gesturally painted and richly coloured garment she is presumably removing, Schiele not only anchors the figure in the expanse of space that is otherwise devoid of environmental markers but also draws attention to her pelvic region, which he further emphasizes with a sharp blue chevron. In doing so, Schiele purposefully heightens the sexual significance of the image, thereby signalling his belief that all humans are at the mercy of their primal urges.

It is clear that after having forced ourselves to read the entire accompanying text, while focusing our attention on the pelvic region, the trivial sketch presented to our eye seems to take on quite another dimension…

Lot 28 Georges Michel (French 1763-1843) Saint Denis in a stormy landscape oil on canvas, estimate £ 10-15.000

Exquisite sky rendering by this well-known and proficient landscape painter (detail)

Lot 35 Anselm Friedrich Feuerbach (German, 1829-1880) Studienkopf einer Römerin in Profil nach rechts oil on canvas, estimate £ 20.000 – 30.000

Superb capture of light… (detail)

Lot 45 Alexej Alexejewitsch Harlamoff (Russian, 1840-1925) The dark haired beauty oil on canvas, estimate £120.000-160.000

Minutely elaborate technique… (detail)

Lot 49 Gyula Tornai (Hungarian, 1861-1928) The awakening oil on canvas, estimate £10.000-15.000

Kaleidoscopic… sublime (detail)

Lot 62 Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida (Spanish, 1863-1923) Dando Cuerda: Winding the clock oil on canvas laid down on board, estimate £ 60.000-80.000

Bright and gay colouring, announcing the Fauves…

The support in easel painting has a long history. In the days of the natural wood panel, the traditionally square surface destined to receive the artwork was either hewn out of a single plank or – in order to gain more width – manufactured by assembling roughly identical planks. Wood was the natural choice, being the most readily available universal material in pre-industrial times. However, natural wood has important inconveniences.

Cut wood, i.e. wood that is no longer part of a living tree, has inevitable internal tensions. Wood fibres and cellular mass grow slowly under constant stress. The cellular structure of the growing tree must counter and stabilize strains coming from unequal growth consequent to structural bends, twist and turns necessary to keep disproportionate weight above ground and in equilibrium. When a tree is cut into planks, the inside tension, not anymore meeting any balancing exterior force, will make planks warp and bend. Furthermore, wood continually absorbs and dissolves humidity resulting in considerable structural modifications. Keeping the manufactured panel in too humid or too dry conditions, or alternating its presence in between humid and dry areas, will inevitably lead the wood to “work” and will detach, in the process, any applied layers of paint. This is a difficulty with the singular plank painting and an outright nightmare with the assembly. An assembled panel can be seen as a gathering of unruly elements.

Then stretched linen canvas came along as substitution for the natural wood panel, being easier to manufacture and lighter to handle; the linen being tightly stretched onto a thin wooden frame. The design of the latter – the stretcher – continuously developed over the years to better maintain the tension but also to counter the deteriorating effects on the stretched material (breaking edges). As with natural wood, linen is subject to tensions and reactions that are spread unequally over the total surface and that result in, for linen, bulging, slackening or tear.

After the First World War the modern board took over the scene, made out of wooden ply, fibres or particles. The great advantage with board was the physical inertia that the synthetically assembled mass brought with. No more of that extreme sensitivity, neither to humidity (not always though) nor to structural tension.

The use of linen canvas as support for easel painting has lingered on into our days, mainly for traditional reasons. What is true is that the aspect of a painted surface varies depending on the calibrated combination of the painting technique and the stiffness of the supporting structure. Canvasses that for some reason or other are laid on board tend to lose much of their initial surface characteristics and the result is often disappointing.

There is a natural evolution in the oil painting technique that accompanies the described evolution of the support, but this is a topic that we will return to in another post.

Paintings have been framed ever since the portable image was invented, i.e. since imagery ceased being permanently fixed into or unto a specific wall and became mobile, hung according to the whim of the owner. The frame entered the scene as a natural substitute for the architectural surrounds of the fresco or a secco mural. And until the modern art movement, the frame never left the scene. In fact it’s such a natural accompaniment to imagery that the sudden absence of framing has given to modern painting an important and surprising new dimension.

The frame greatly influences our perception of the framed artwork. A well chosen frame can revive an intrinsically bland work whereas a miss-match is capable of rendering a masterpiece invisible. Let’s say that the average effect lies in between these two extremes. The framing is not all-important but of sufficient consequence to be looked into more closely.

The frame delineates a painting; it encloses a given space and serves as gradient transition, enclosure or obstacle. It can strengthen your appreciation, lead you astray or call for attention. The delimitation of space effectuated by any frame accommodates our natural tendency to simplify our understanding or perception. No doubt this is the reason why the frame was happily dispensed of by the modern iconoclast movement.

The success of framing lies in its discretion. If you look at a picture and you notice the frame, the framing is amiss. A frame well-chosen blends with the painting; it enhances, supports and serves the framed object and doesn’t steal the show. Bear in mind that our perception of the elaborateness of a frame is relative to the epoch. Even the most exuberant of historic frames were seldom exaggerated; they just adequately framed yet more exuberant paintings. In regard to the object, the frame should always be in some way subdued in design or colour. Period framing is always to prefer and in most cases the one that was initially conceived to go with the art. If your painting has lost its original frame, or if the latter is in an irreparable state, look for period replacement and do not frame ‘against’ the style. There are simple rules. A dark painting takes a dark frame, a light painting a light frame. A large frame should be simpler in ornament than a thin frame. The colour is always in some way assorted and either replicates the basic tonal value or contrasts with an appropriate counter-value. Ornament and elaboration is period dependent and is to be seen in relation to the structural outset of the painting.

This sounds all very simple and evident and yet we can’t help noticing how many paintings are literally obliterated by insensitive framing. As the frame is indispensable to traditional painting we should train ourselves to be better aware of its effects on the art it serves.

For any maker, the moment of signature is decisive, sometimes difficult. In art maybe more than in other areas. One can understand that some artists abstain from signing a work that is felt as unachieved. Some, not lucid about their dissatisfaction, spend years adding to or modifying before finally making up their mind. The signature has thus tremendous importance for a work of art, not only in assigning authorship, but more poignantly in that of announcing achievement. A signature is the artist’s spontaneous fiat, given after satisfaction.

Take thus an unsigned work, to all appearances finished; is there reason to think that the artist wasn’t happy with his act? This is an altogether valid presumption; exception made for authors that deliberately don’t sign and of course for artwork of trivial or sketchy nature. An elaborate but unsigned work not only raises questions about its attribution or the maker’s idea of its state of achievement, but also on the author’s judgement of the result of his act.

Independently of the certainty or the uncertainty about an attribution, a work not signed is a work whose value will weigh lighter on the market.