From: Jack Fulton (jefulton1@attbi.com)
Date: 06/28/03-11:21:56 AM Z
The mat thoughts of placing an image slightly higher is Western thinking and
therefore familiar and agreeable to our eyes and mind.
An article a few years back in 'African Arts' was on a tribe in Nigeria who
had replaced the carved wood icon of the dead chief on the top of the portal
to the mail lodge with a photograph. The Nigerians had learned photography
from the English and made a portrait by aiming the lens at the solar plexus.
This had an effect of 'elevating' the subject of the king to an important
position. This illusory point is similar to the church clerestory window
designed so as to raise one's eye toward heaven. It is where Christ was seen
by the multitude at crucifixion, thereby becoming embedded in Western art
and even leading to the alter which is primarily that of the triptych.
I think when we wish to create new 'models' of mounting/framing/matting such
as as the now au currant matless framing employing the thin black edged
frame, it is a desire to break tradition. Too, today, there is much more a
grouping of imagery, of placing multiple images related to one another in a
'set' of photographs. To a degree it breaks the didactic tradition of the
clerestory matting technique of creating importance.
Hope I did not wander to afar field.
Cheers
Jack Fulton
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