Hanging paintings

February 22, 2024

How do you decide which painting to buy? where to hang it?

During these difficult days we try to occupy ourselves with things that can calm us down and do us some good.
After cleaning the house and sorting out the closets, now is the time to arrange all the décor and art.

What in your opinion is more important, the painting or its location in the house?

My approach is that when you buy art for the home, the most important thing is how you feel next to the painting. How does your body react to it? Sometimes people say to me: “I don’t know if I like it. How can I know? The test for me is to simply feel..
When I look at the painting, does the body go into stress, or does it expand and relax?
And it doesn’t matter if it’s a Van Gogh painting or if you even received it as a gift, if it doesn’t make you feel good in your body, the place of the painting is less appropriate in your home.
Quite often people come to buy a painting with the intention of buying something that is suitable to hang on a specific wall, and even before they ask themselves if they connect with the painting, they check whether it will ‘fit’ in terms of size or colors for the place where they intend it to be. .
But you can also change the order: first find a painting you connect with, and only then find the most suitable place for it in the house.

Finding the right painting for the home is like falling in love! First you fall in love, then you take care of the rest.

How do you know which is the most suitable place for painting?

My first recommendation is to treat the walls of your home like a blank canvas. You acquired a new piece of art? Then give it the respect it deserves. Do not jump ahead and hang it on the wall that happens to be empty. Rather think, if any place on the wall were possible, where would be the most appropriate place for the new painting?

When it comes to a large painting, we will dedicate an entire wall to it. Paintings like the one in the picture – cannot compete with anything else. In the past they used to make photo collages on the wall, Russian Salon style, but today this no longer exists. Nowadays, in exhibitions and museums, they try to give each work its own focus. this approach goes for the house as well.

After hanging a painting that has a lot of presence, we need to carefully choose what to put on the wall next to it and the wall opposite. It is important to choose images that will not compete to grab our attention. The idea is not to overwhelm, to create a harmonious flow. Choose a picture that will be pleasing to your eyes, so it blends well with its surrounding. If on one wall there is a painting with lots of colors, on the wall next to and opposite it should be something calmer, so that the eyes will be calm.

In general, you should pay attention not to hang too many elements that steal the eye on the same wall.

How do I adapt the painting to the house?

From time to time, I am invited by clients to help select the right painting for their home. A good option is to send a photo of the space so I can make a simulation, in order to get a visual idea of how the painting will look like.
Since I studied curation, I have experience in interior design, and I enjoy doing this type of work.

My advantage, as someone who comes from the outside, is that I come clean slate. I don’t have the nostalgia and sentiments for the picture that used to hang in my grandfather’s house – and I just look at the house and everything in it, all the walls and all the art, as if everything is a clean canvas, and I simply rearrange the positions of the pictures.

The question I ask myself is: if everything is possible – where do I begin?

What paintings do I hang? What am I not hanging? Are there paintings that need to be fixed? Whether to renew by reframing, or by applying a special substance that will restore their shine. One of the mistakes people make is that they feel the need to use all the works of art they have. In fact, there is really no need to hang all the paintings in the house on the wall. It’s actually nice to have a change, and from time to time you ‘refresh’ the wall with a new piece.

How do you choose the paintings that are suitable to hang in the same space?

Another common mistake I encounter is that people try to match shades.

Just the way I don’t think it is necessary to match the color of blue shadow with blue eyes, there is no need to match the colors of the painting to the blue color of the picture next to it. For me, you can put blue next to green, next to red, next to yellow. Everything can fit in, just like in nature, after all, in nature, all these colors combine wonderfully. Therefore, there are no ‘rules’ of matching shades.
So how?
Here too, the answer is ‘to feel’. Observe and feel: Does the combination please my eyes?
The feeling of whether something pleases my eyes or not is a personal feeling of each viewer.
And yet – there are cases when two paintings do not fit together in the same space or next to each other. This happens if the combination of the two does not respect each work individually.
If you cannot enjoy one of the styles, because the style of the other painting grabs the attention or ‘steals’ the show, you should replace one of them with a ‘quieter’ painting.
It is important to know that you can use “rules” from the world of art, but the most important thing is to know how to listen to the feeling of your body.

Enjoy the new arrangement of art at home!
And if you live in central Israel – you can invite me to consult you.
Let’s hope for calm days!
BRING THEM HOME!