Portraits Wall Art

Portraits Wall Art

Portraits suit rooms you move through and rooms you sit quietly in, and they are hardest in the ones between. A stairwell, a landing or a hallway works because you meet the face for a moment and carry on. A study or a snug works because the room holds one person at a time and can take the company. An open-plan kitchen where the family eats, argues and does homework is where portraits tend to fail: a face at that scale, present for hours, becomes a sixth person at the table.

Bedrooms divide people. A portrait facing the bed is the first thing you see each morning, which some find companionable and others find a great deal to ask of a Tuesday. The compromise is to hang it on the same wall as the headboard, where it is present in the room without being present at you.

Grouping changes the behaviour entirely. Several small portraits hung as a grid stop being individual faces and start being pattern, and pattern is easy to live with. One large face is a presence, and a presence needs a room with enough space for you to be somewhere else in it.

What separates strong portrait art from weak is usually the eyes and the hands. Good examples keep the eyes slightly imperfect and alive, and let the hands be awkward the way real hands are. Weak ones smooth everything to plastic, and that flaw grows more obvious the longer the picture hangs, which with a portrait is the wrong direction of travel.

An honest caveat: portraits are the subject people tire of soonest, because a face is specific in a way a coastline is not. If you are unsure, start with one in a corridor rather than the main room. Corridors are forgiving, and if it earns its keep there you can promote it later.