Breaking the Rules
We recently gave a talk to a group of patrons on the art of buying, collecting, hanging, framing and lighting art. We discovered, upon doing some research to prepare for our talk, that while we do impart some conventional wisdom, for the most part we recommended breaking the rules. The only rule we try to really follow is to buy with your heart. That said, there are many practical considerations to take into account, which we prefer to call, “Breaking the Rules.”
1. First rule to break: Buy for a space and limit your size to the space. No! We feel you should be aware of the space but not constrained by it. If you have a big wall over a mantel, but you’ve fallen in love with a painting that you want to put there and it doesn’t fit, make it work. Add sconces to either side, put up lamps, hang plates, or do topiaries. If you love it, it will work.
2. Large paintings can overwhelm small rooms. Not necessarily. If you love it, it will work! We think that a large painting can make a small room have more personality, look bigger, bolder and different. And we welcome the unexpected, the juxtaposition of styles, sizes and colors.
3. Buy small paintings for small rooms. Conversely, small art can get lost in large rooms. So if you love a small painting, get a grouping together of similar paintings. Groupings work best if there is continuity between them, either in color, style, medium or frame. The best way to pull together a grouping is to lay them out on the floor first, and arrange them so that the spaces between them are fairly consistent.
4. Keep in mind the overall décor of your room, and select art accordingly. No! If you have a traditional home with mostly traditional antiques and rugs, but your heart says you love a contemporary painting, go for it! The mix is great and will make you smile because you bought what you loved.
5. Marry the art with the theme of the room: No!! We say, embrace the unexpected! We like to avoid the clichés of putting like subjects in like rooms, such as sports art in a game room, bright florals in a sunny breakfast area or vegetables in a kitchen.
6. Keep sunny paintings where you want energy and cool paintings where you want it to be soothing: This is more subjective and we would tend to agree that if your furniture is cool (greys, Swedish antiques, painted), it will look better with more muted colors but we would look for something warm and muted, such as grey greens, or browns. We do find that keeping the temperature consistent (grouping cools with cools, warms with warms) will provide a more harmonious feel.
7. Keep your styles consistent, e.g. if you have a traditional home, buy traditional art. No again!! We love to mix it up and think that is what gives the painting and the room interest and energy. We love to marry traditional furniture with modern, abstract art. In our gallery, we have some fabulous Louis XVth armchairs and some other elegant Louis XVIth gold side chairs. We can pretty much guarantee that you will always see these antiques paired with our most contemporary, abstract paintings. Too much of the same thing is boring. Just as you wouldn’t want to have all painted furniture, you wouldn’t want to have all the same style of art.
Other ways that we love to mix it up:
· Marry a cool contemporary painting with a traditional ornate gold frame
· Conversely, we often put our traditional paintings in contemporary “floater” frames
· Place a traditional painting in very contemporary environment
· Hang traditional paintings in a modern, stainless kitchen
· Mix traditional paintings with abstracts on the same wall
· Put a nude or a bold, still-life painting in a family room
· Hang a painting on the outside of a book case
· Light a contemporary painting with a traditional picture light |
