In two-dimensional visual art, particularly painting, the term frieze is used to describe an arrangement of figures that are flattened into a plane parallel to the plane of the picture, thus resembling those seen in architectural friezes. These returned to fashion in the late nineteenth century for their unusual visual effect.

John Roddam Spencer Stanhope’s Why seek ye the living among the dead? (St Luke, Chapter 14, verse 5) (1896) refers to the account of the Resurrection in which Mary Magdalene and companion(s) return to Christ’s tomb, only to find its door open and the tomb empty. They are then greeted by two men who inform them that Christ has risen from the dead. Stanhope depicts this in the style of a frieze, the four figures arranged across the painting in a single parallel plane. Although part of a complex narrative, he depicts only a limited window from the story, and in doing so makes his painting simpler and more direct.

In 1902 Gustav Klimt painted a frieze of 24 metres in length for the fourteenth exhibition of the Vienna Secession, his Beethoven Frieze, of which the above is a section known as The Hostile Powers, and that below is Nagging Grief. This is not only a frieze in the sense of a flat wall painting, but its composition is flattened as well.

Another frieze or mural painted at this time is Hodler’s Unanimity from 1913, in the Neue Rathaus in Hanover, Germany. This has survived adverse criticism, the Nazi regime, and the bombing of the city during the Second World War. At its centre is the figure of Dietrich Arnsborg (1475-1558), who on 26 June 1533 brought together an assembly of the (male) citizens of Hanover in its market square, by the old town hall. Together they swore to adhere to the new Reformation doctrine of Martin Luther, as shown here in their unanimous raising of right hands.

Evelyn De Morgan’s Cadence of Autumn from 1905 shows five women in a frieze against a rustic background. From the left, one holds a basket of grapes and other fruit, two are putting marrows, apples, pears and other fruit into a large net bag, held between them. The fourth crouches down from a seated position, her hands grasping leaves, and the last is stood, letting the wind blow leaves out from each hand.

There are also a few paintings in which a frieze forms the background rather than figures in the foreground.

Frederick Sandys shows Medea (1866-68) at work, preparing a magic potion for one of Jason’s missions. In front of her is a toad, and other ingredients. Behind her, in a gilt frieze, is Jason’s ship the Argo.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s painting of Arthurian legend, How Sir Galahad, Sir Bors and Sir Percival Were Fed with the Sanct Grael; but Sir Percival’s Sister Died by the Way from 1864, awards haloes to what at first appear to be secular women. In fact he has stretched this legend to include the Virgin Mary, in the left foreground with her white lilies, also given haloes, and a host of angels with wings forming a background frieze.

Finally, paintings may incorporate a frieze above or below a more conventional three-dimensional image.

Félicien Rops’ notorious Pornocrates (1878) shows a blindfolded and nearly-naked woman being led by a pig tethered on a lead like a dog. Below is a frieze containing allegories of sculpture, music, poetry and painting. Make of them what you wish.

In architecture, a frieze is a section of a building above the columns or walls and below the roof, commonly the location of decorative sculpture or a bas-relief.

This is the monumental hall of Walhalla, commissioned in the nineteenth century as a memorial to the great figures of German history. On its north side is this pediment frieze showing the victory of Arminius and the Germanic tribes over the Romans at the Battle of Teutoburg Forest. This is an unusual frieze as it adds more depth to the figures than would appear in a normal relief.

The most famous is shown in Lawrence Alma-Tadema’s beautiful painting of Phidias Showing the Frieze of the Parthenon to his Friends (1868), whose admiring figures include Pericles (at the right), Aspasia, Alcibiades and Socrates.

In two-dimensional visual art, particularly painting, the term frieze is also used to describe an arrangement of figures that are flattened into a plane parallel to the plane of the picture, thus resembling those seen in architectural friezes.

Among the most spectacular wall-paintings of Pompeii are those in the Villa of the Mysteries showing Dionysian Rites from before about 62 CE. Room 5 contains a frieze of 29 figures at nearly life size, apparently depicting a sequence of ritual events involving a mixture of Pompeiians and deities.

In the period before three-dimensional linear projection became widely adopted in European art, many paintings adopted a similar approach for groups of figures. But long afterwards the frieze continued to be used in the right circumstances.

Masaccio’s Adoration of the Magi (1426-7) delivers a frieze-like view of this popular subject. The Virgin Mary is sat on a golden portable folding chair decorated with lion heads and paws, the infant Christ on her knee. To the left of her is the standard group of ox and ass in a shed, and behind her is Joseph, holding one of the gifts from the Magi. Hints at depth are given in the heights of some figures, but they are confined to a shallow plane parallel to the picture plane.

When Raphael painted The Marriage of the Virgin known by its Italian name of Il Sposalizio (‘the marriage’), in 1504, he combined the frieze of figures in the foreground with grand architecture expertly projected in depth. This demonstrates the contrast between the flat frieze in the foreground and the depth of the building behind.

Some motifs are prone to creating frieze effects, and painters have gone out of their way to avoid that.

William Blake Richmond’s An Audience in Athens During Agamemnon by Aeschylus from 1884 is a study of the enraptured audience of a play. Its classical setting has strong formal symmetry, with its central figure perhaps representing the playwright himself. Richmond uses greatly exaggerated aerial perspective, with intense chroma in the foreground falling off rapidly towards the back of the theatre, to give depth to what would otherwise have appeared flat and frieze-like.

Late in the nineteenth century some artists like Ferdinand Hodler adopted frieze effects.

Hodler’s World-Weary (1891-92) was an important early work in the development of his style of Parallelism, with its emphasis on the symmetry and rhythms seen in society. He painted this frieze from models who sat for him in a local cemetery during the autumn of 1891.

The Disappointed Souls (1892), another in this series, also shows five older men, this time dressed in black robes and sat on a bench in barren fields.