Purple Abstract Wall Art

Purple Abstract Wall Art: Reading the Temperature

Purple sits on the fence between warm and cool, and every purple abstract quietly picks a side. Violet and lavender lean blue, and behave like cool colours: calming, receding, a little formal. Plum, mauve and aubergine lean red, and behave warm: closer, softer, more enveloping. Two canvases filed under the same colour can pull a room in opposite directions, so work out which side yours is on before anything else.

Your lighting will take a side too. Warm evening bulbs deepen the red-leaning purples handsomely, but they grey off violets and lavenders, which can leave a cool purple looking bruised by night. Cool daylight does the reverse. As a rule, warm purples are safer in rooms used mostly in the evening, and cool purples suit daytime rooms with decent natural light.

For company, cool purples like grey, silver, white and pale timber; warm purples like brass, walnut, ochre and deep green. Green is the underused partner here — a purple abstract above plants or beside a green velvet chair looks considered in a way that purple-plus-grey never quite manages.

The mistake to avoid is more purple. Matching the canvas with purple cushions, a purple throw and a purple lamp tips any room towards a themed bedroom, and abstracts suffer this fate more than most because they invite matching. Let the canvas be the only purple thing in the room and it will read as art rather than accessory.

Check one thing before you buy: pull the image up on your phone in the room, at night, under your usual lamps. If the purple has gone grey, buy warmer; if it has gone rich, you have your answer.