Classic Wall Art

Classic Wall Art: Tall Figures, Wide Landscapes

Orientation is decided by the original composition, not by the gap on your wall, and this is the category where that bites hardest. Figures and portraits were painted vertical because a person is vertical. Pastoral scenes, harbours and grand interiors were painted wide because the eye travels sideways across them. Buy a wide crop of a tall composition and you have bought the middle of somebody's picture with the head removed.

Traditional painting also brings a particular tonal habit: deep brown shadows, a narrow palette, light arriving from one side. That range looks anaemic on brilliant white and comes alive against colour — a deep green, an ink blue, a warm stone. If your walls are white and staying white, favour the lighter compositions with plenty of sky over the dark interior scenes.

Hanging height is lower than instinct suggests. These images were made to be met at eye level by someone standing in a room, so a centre around 145–150cm from the floor is closer to right than the picture-rail height people default to. Hung high, a formal portrait tilts its gaze over your head and the whole thing turns aloof.

Modern furniture is a better companion than reproduction antiques. A formal painted portrait above a plain contemporary sideboard reads as a deliberate collision and holds attention. The same portrait in a room of carved dark wood and swagged curtains reads as set dressing for a period drama, and stops being noticed at all.

One honest caveat about detail. Densely worked scenes — crowds, banquets, ships in a busy harbour — were made for close inspection, and at the far end of a long room everything they were made for disappears. Keep the complicated ones where people sit or wait, within a couple of paces. Save single figures, strong silhouettes and simple landscapes for the walls people only walk past.