By m. b. georgp: 
W HAT sort of frame should I select lor 
this picture ? is a question commonly 
asked. The picture may he an etch- 
ing, print, water-color, photograph, or study in oil. 
It has been the experience of the writer that there are 
a large number of people who, fully competent to go 
to the shops or stores and select various articles 
for furnishing 
their homes—and 
make appropriate 
selections too — 
when it comes to 
the matter of 
frames, confess 
themselves to he 
entirely at sea. 
In many homes 
of moderate cir¬ 
cumstances, pic¬ 
tures have been 
stored away in clos¬ 
ets,fine photographs 
or prints have 
been allowed to 
curl up or become 
otherwise damaged, 
because, as a 
lady remarked 
the other day, 
“Frames cost too 
much! If I take 
this to so and so, 
I pay for the 
‘know how,’ if I 
go to a cheap place, it won’t be done properly— 
they don’t know any more about it than I do.” 
And such a statement is entirely logical. Where the 
cost of an article must be carefully considered, it 
certainly is no economy to pay two or three times the 
actual value for the “know how.” 
But why should there not be just as simple and as 
comprehensive rules for choosing appropriate frames 
as in the choice of a chair, a bit of drapery, or a rug ? 
In the first place, let us emphasize the fact that a 
frame is merely a border to enclose the picture and to 
separate it from other objects in the room or gallery. 
Its object is entirely to concentrate the vision on what 
is within the four connecting walls. A bit of 
landscape seen through a half opened window, 
appears brighter, more intensified in color, because, 
confined within 
the boundaries 
of the window- 
frame, the eye goes 
immediately to the 
glow of light. This 
is due to the law of 
contrast — of dark 
against light. 
What the win¬ 
dow itself is like 
or how constructed, 
is not at first evi¬ 
dent, neither should 
it he in a picture. 
Ihe frame must 
always he secon¬ 
dary to the picture. 
Here it might 
also he well to add 
that for the best 
“showing off” or 
setting of the pic¬ 
ture, the matter 
does not end with 
the frame. If this 
is to he secondary, 
so must be the pattern of the wall-paper or drapery 
behind the frame. Many a beautiful and valu¬ 
able object is hidden under a bushel, because the 
eye is not given a chance to see it, the vision is 
confused by a glaring scroll or a hodge-podge of 
other objects. The Japanese in their homes never 
expose at one time hut a single objet d'art to attract 
and please the eye. The beauty of the cloi¬ 
sonne vase, carved bit of ivory or jade, is set off by 
AN ORIENTAL STREET BY ADDISON T. MILLAR 
The elaborate pattern of the gold frame is offset by the severe 
lines of the picture 
