Framing Art on Canvas

Original art in oil or acrylic on canvas makes a striking centrepiece to any room. 

Art on canvas needs to be stretched over a frame before hanging (see Canvas Stretching), but once stretched can either be left unframed for the minimal contemporary look or framed to enhance the image.

Typically, art on canvas or board would be framed without glass, and so the use of a mount to give the image space is impractical also.  To compensate, canvases are usually framed with larger moulding, or sometimes even multiple mouldings.

The picture of venice, right, is framed with three mouldings, a large gold shaped outer moulding, a wide linen faced slip inside that, and a small gold bead inside that.  The effect is spectacular.

A compromise between framing a canvas or leaving it unframed is the Valley frame, a moulding that fits around the edge of a box canvas with a gap visible around the edge, as shown below.