Dachshund Wall Art

Dachshund Wall Art: How Close Will You Stand?

Dog prints get approached. A landscape is looked at from the sofa; a dachshund on the wall gets walked up to, pointed at and inspected from half a metre, usually by someone saying the dog's name in a silly voice. That changes what matters: whiskers, the wet edge of the nose, the individual hairs on a wire-haired coat all have to survive close inspection, because they will get it.

Shape drives the crop more than with most breeds. A dachshund at full stretch is a long, low horizontal, and squeezing that into a square loses either the tail or the nose, both of which are the point. Wide formats suit the standing profile; a portrait shape only really works for a head study or a sitting pose, where the length stops being the subject.

Illustrated treatments and photographic ones behave differently on a wall. A clean line drawing or flat-colour illustration reads instantly from across a room and holds up in a dim hallway. A detailed photograph or painted study needs light and proximity to give its best, and can look slightly dead in a shaded corner. Neither is better; they want different walls.

Placement is worth thinking about literally. These end up in kitchens, boot rooms and hallways — the dog parts of a house — and they can hang lower than the usual gallery rule suggests, because that is where your eye goes when there is a dog about anyway. Just above a bench or a row of coat hooks is often exactly right.

The honest caveat: no generic print of the breed will look like your dog, and if that is what you are after, every one of them will quietly disappoint you. Buy these for the shape and the character of the breed — the smug profile, the ridiculous proportions, the ears — and they hold up for years.