: The presence of a frame can express a subtle "self-awareness" of the artwork's own existence as a created object rather than a direct window into reality.
: Edward S. Casey describes edges and frames not as literal limits where activity stops, but as structures that "shelter and support" the image, opening up possibilities for it to emerge.
: Mikel Dufrenne defines this as a "bodily comprehension" where the subject and the "aesthetic object" (the artwork as perceived) are fundamentally interconnected.
The frame is not just a decorative edge but a critical phenomenological device that structures the viewer's experience.
: Far from just excluding what is outside, the frame can give the internal image a "special energy" in spatial and temporal dimensions that it would otherwise lack. August 2025 - Maya Decipherment
: Philosophers like Maurice Merleau-Ponty argue that painting gives expression to the way our physical bodies encounter the world. Art reveals the "act of appearing" before the mind translates it into abstract concepts.
: This concept, developed by Paul Crowther in his work Phenomenology of the Visual Arts (even the frame) , refers to the set of perceptual factors that inform our basic cognition of the world, which visual art uniquely captures and aligns. The Phenomenology of the Frame