How can a picture and its frame be combined to form a single composition? The painter Arthur Segal came up with a new answer to this question. It all began with the light experiments he carried out with his pupil, the artist Nikolaus Braun (1900–1950). These studies led him to create prismatic compositions between 1922 and 1925, which accorded every component of the work equal status. Segal applied the same principle to his painting “Helgoland”. He reduced the objects in the picture – houses, cliffs, ships – to flat surfaces and simple geometric shapes, and incorporated the frame itself into the image.