The journal

What one artwork changes in a room

One room, one artwork, one light. Each article starts from a real wall and ends on the painting that fits it, with its size and its price.

Sand-clay living room with an arched niche and a brick velvet sofa, a framed Modigliani double portrait hung on the flat wall above the sofa

Should a painting go inside an arched niche?

No: the niche keeps its own object, and a piece like this Modigliani double portrait belongs on the flat wall right next to it, above the sofa.

 Artist's studio living room with a low daybed under steel glazing, a framed Matisse still life hung at the centre of a whitewashed brick wall, ready for two companion pieces

Composing several paintings above a sofa

One painting above the sofa is a settled question. Three is a question of rhythm: which piece leads, how much space between the frames, and where the composition stops before it spills across the wall.

 Detail of Willem Kalf's Wineglass and a Bowl of Fruit: a blue and white porcelain bowl, an orange and a gilded goblet stem against a nearly black ground

What to hang above a dining room sideboard

A Dutch still life on a sideboard: Kalf's picture from the Cleveland Museum of Art, at what height, in which size and frame, and at what furniture width you need two.

 Detail of Vilhelm Hammershøi's Interior. The Music Room, Strandgade 30: an old piano, a grey chair, a cello and a small framed picture on a blue grey wall

What to hang in a narrow hallway

A hallway is walked through, not viewed from afar. A Hammershøi from the Art Institute of Chicago to show which size, height and frame to choose when you cannot step back.

 Country house living room with lime-washed walls and an exposed beam, with the framed print of Corot's Interrupted Reading hung on the wall behind the sofa

Corot's Interrupted Reading in a country living room

A lime-washed wall, a velvet sofa, a woman looking up from her book. Corot's Interrupted Reading doesn't need a grand salon to belong, just a quiet wall and the right height.

 Mid-century living room with teak furniture, with the framed print of John Philip Simpson's portrait of Ira Aldridge, The Captive Slave, on the wall

A portrait that holds your gaze

Some paintings decorate, others watch. The portrait of Ira Aldridge painted by John Philip Simpson in 1827 belongs to the second kind, and that's exactly what earns it a place in a living room.

 Sand-toned living room with a linen sofa, with the framed print of Gustave Moreau's Hercules and the Lernaean Hydra on the wall

Mythological art above the sofa?

Mythological scenes have a reputation for being too much for a living room. That's true of the bad ones. The great ones, like Gustave Moreau's Hercules, do the exact opposite: they hold the wall and leave the room at peace.

 Living room with whitewashed brick walls and pale wood furniture, with the framed print of Rembrandt's Old Man with a Gold Chain on the wall

An old master in a modern interior?

It's the question we get asked most, always with the same worry: won't it clash? Here's the answer, with a 1631 Rembrandt on a whitewashed brick wall.

 Bright entryway with an oak floor and wooden console table, with the black-framed print of Emanuel de Witte's Interior of a Church on the wall

What painting for an entryway

You pass through it for ten seconds a day and never sit down there. That's exactly why an entryway can carry the image a living room would refuse.

 Natural linen bedroom with wood beams, with the oak-framed print of Renoir's Madame Léon Clapisson above the headboard

What painting above the bed

It's the only wall in the house you look at lying down, and the only one you never see in full. Two constraints that rule out half the images.

 Haussmannian living room with white plaster mouldings and a marble fireplace, with the framed gold-leaf print of Manet's Berthe Morisot with a Muff on the wall

What painting for a Haussmannian apartment

Moulded cornices, a marble mantel, herringbone parquet: the decor is already written. The question isn't what to add, it's where to put the one thing that's missing.

 Brick loft with a caramel leather sofa and a black steel coffee table, with the framed print of Acrobats at the Cirque Fernando by Pierre-Auguste Renoir on the brick wall

What painting for a brick wall in a loft

Brick is already a material, a color, and a rhythm. You don't hang on it the way you'd hang on a white wall, and half the images that work elsewhere disappear on it.

 Country living room with limewashed walls and a tan leather sofa, with the framed print of Vincent van Gogh's 1887 self-portrait on the wall

Where to hang a portrait in a country living room

A landscape looks at nothing. A portrait does, and that changes everything about where you hang it.

 Bright Haussmannian living room, beige linen sofa, with the framed print of Two Sisters (On the Terrace) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir on the wall

What painting above the sofa in a bright living room

A wide wall, low seating, plenty of light. The sofa wall gets it wrong more often than right, and it's almost always the same mistake.