The problem of the frame is not new. A particular period that is directly relevant to this discussion is the early Baroque. In the seventeenth century, the Baroque fresco artists attempted solutions to the problem of the frame. Their works experimented with the boundary between image, frame, and the geometric structure that supported it. Such works were constructed so that "the ensemble made a theatrical and emotional assault on the spectator, enmeshing them in a spatial geometry whose lines are never still, leading them from one enclave to the next, involving him in the drama depicted in the picture, confusing the spatial domains of art and reality." [2]

Interestingly, to term a work “Baroque” was originally meant as a derogatory slur. Despite slow acceptance, the artists responsible seemed most sure of the validity of their work. Indeed, production of such works required great technical skills combined with dedication and perseverance (major works took many years to complete). Such works of art reached out in every direction physically and emotionally, trying to escape beyond the frame, to draw the viewer into its orbit. Whereas Renaissance painters and patrons had been fascinated by the visual possibilities of perspective and of the fact that the viewer could look into a spatial illusion, seventeenth and eighteenth century artists regarded viewers as participants in the work of art and architecture.