Framed for Beauty: Rising Above Constraints to Create Masterpieces

The most important thing in an artwork is the frame. Without the frame, it looks incomplete and undefined. However, when paired with the right frame, it gains a sense of completeness—almost as if by magic. The frame accentuates the inherent beauty of the artwork.

For example, arranging dry leaves within an appropriate frame transforms them into a herbarium. The frame limits the scope of your possibilities but reveals beauty. Beauty is revealed in and through limitations. Timeless literature always encapsulates the adventures of heroes within certain boundaries.

Those boundaries allow the beauty to shine.?Les Miserables, The Lord of the Rings, The Shack, The Brothers Karamazov, the Gospels — the more limitations the hero faces the more a silent question arises in our minds, “Will he go through it beautifully or not?”

We know how our own limitations make us feel. We know they present obstacles to how much we can do. We wish them away. We long to be free of them, believing that fewer constraints would allow us to live more beautifully. We believe without limitations we will walk through life more beautifully. We won’t. We may get through life, but it won’t be a piece of art.

For a life to be a piece of art, limitations are essential.?The question is not, “How can I get rid of these limitations? The question is,?“What can I create within these limitations to reveal beauty?”?The frame gives us the necessary drive to transcend our limitations without erasing them.

Thankfully, some limitations can be overcome (thank God). Yet, there will always be others that remain. They are the frame within which?we have the opportunity to rise above the frame.?The frame doesn’t confine the art — it releases it. It is here to lead us out of our limitations. A framed piece of art doesn’t look limited. It looks boundless.

For a life to be boundless, it must be framed.

G.K. Chesterton once sprained his foot and used the opportunity to write an ode to his healthy leg. He reflects on the poetic pleasures of standing on one leg and appreciates the strength and beauty of his healthy leg. He points out that the isolation of one leg, similar to a single tower or tree, allows for a deeper appreciation of life. In conclusion, he says that to value something truly,?we must realize the possibility of its loss.

“An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.”

We are all divine artists drawing our lives within the constraints of our earthly frame. What will I do with my limitations today? I can either lament their existence or rise above them.?They can be either an obstacle or a beauty revealer.?The question is, “Will I walk through this day beautifully?”

“Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame.” G.K. Chesterton