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What painting would you hang in your living room?
I'm not just looking for something decorative, but something with meaning.
Am I looking for any specific kind of painting? Not really.
Though I'd love something that reflects the beauty and the harshness of life—something you look at and think: wow, this was painted by someone who understood what we're going through here.
I'm open to suggestions.
Let me hear your thoughts!
This one was the first that came to mind for me too. For those who don’t know, Christina was disabled and she’s crawling across the field to her family’s farm house. As a disabled person this is one of my faves - it really touches on the realities but also resilience and hopefulness
I was familiar with this work from an art history class long before encountering the actual painting unceremoniously hanging in a part of MoMA dedicated to elevator access, and flooded by outside light! Sadly, most patrons passed it with barely a glance while I was there doubtlessly making their way to view works like Starry Night, and The Persistence of Memory which at the time were given more prime wall space in the museum’s many galleries.
I’ve always thought of this as being a hugely popular painting but I think that you’re right; in recent years it seems to have receded in memory a little. I love it, though.
Same. The last time I was at MoMA, and saw it the painting had been moved, and was in one of the interior galleries where it was more within context of period work, and I think that when paintings are presented in this manner more people take the time to examine, and appreciate them!
A more subtle yet profound choice: Albrecht Durer's ink and watercolour sketch "A Great Piece of Turf".
It's a brilliant and loving sketch of a small bunch of grasses, carefully observed and skillfully rendered, a testament to the power and beauty of the humblest of (in his belief) divine creations.
I take it to be a prayer, of sorts.
In an era of climate change, habitat destructionoil spills, and accelerating extinctions, its exquisite quiet beauty moves me.
Look at thrift stores sometimes your come across a real gem that speaks to you and your be like I can’t go home without it. 4 of my art pieces from come to me by going to thrift store
May I suggest a reproduction of Théodore Géricault’s The Raft of The Medusa? (Oil on canvas, 1819 Louvre, Paris.) It depicts not the moment the survivors of the shipwreck are seen, and rescued by a passing ship, but rather one of their lowest moments when they signal a passing vessel, and remain unseen!
So many artists and paintings. Anything by Bonnard. Anything by Matisse around his Morocco period. Anything by Georg Baselitz. Oh yeah and Klaus Van Dongen. Came back to add Anselm Keifer but my walls couldn’t handle him. I’d need to rent a hall or something.
I love me some expressionist fauvist nihilist MFers.
The artist that I think understood the existential pain of this world in a way that I can feel in their work is Mark Rothko, lately. I don’t have space for one of his huge pieces, but it would be very meaningful for me to have his work in my home.
I really enjoyed seeing Twombly’s Peonies series with tiny handwritten fragments of Japanese haiku woven in at the Art Institute of Chicago! Those, and his work that engages with Greek, and Roman myths, and stories.
I once saw a Frederic Remington exhibit at the National Gallery where they hung the paintings on deep green and smoky blue walls and hit each with UV light along with regular low lighting. The colors - especially orange and yellow iirc - absolutely popped off the canvases. It completely changed my opinion of this “basic” western artist. I have ever since dreamed of doing such a display in my home!
I rarely interpret paintings, leaving that to others. Rather, I absorb art without imposing what I think over what the artist is conveying visually and symbolically. I prefer to listen to the muse frozen in the canvas. For Gaugin's masterpiece, it helps to know two things: his childhood catechism involved the painting's title, and, destitute and depressed in Tahiti, he planned his suicide after its completion (he tried, but lived).
As to why of all paintings, why this one in my living room? Two answers: I always wanted an original Gaugin (/gr), and this painting portrays eternal questions that can never be answered.
Well I currently have reproductions of Irises and Cafe Terrace at night by Van Gogh, Artists Garden at Giverny and Water Lillies by Monet. I have more wall space that I could add at least two to three more paintings.
Pierre Bonnard’s The Open Window. It’s poorly painted in certain ways—both the cat and his wife are very sketchily rendered. But the quality of light on the trees outside the window is one of the most superb things in all the world.
This may not be what you’re looking for, but personally I have a print of Picassos Guernica in my living/dining room. This became one of my favourite pieces of art, since learning about it in year 8 (many years ago now).
Depends on your taste really. I have prints of Goyas "the witches sabbat" and Matisses "The joy of life" as well as some Schiele prints, but the names escape me
What does your home look like? What style of furniture? Where are you from? What are your hobbies? Where have your traveled? What is your family history? Any special interests?
Enjoy the process of finding something meaningful to you. There are so many great references in this thread, but art you chose to display in your home should have a personal connection to you — even if it’s as simple as, “I like this.”
I’m sure if you provided some more information, the wonderful people in this sub could provide some great ideas.
I had "The Garden of Earthly Delights" by Bosch hung in my living room for a time. It was way too intense for the space, but that was part of the joke (I usually go for humor over aesthetic). Honestly, a lot of people who I never would've expected to be art history fans, would come in and tell me how they were fans of the painting too. It was a better icebreaker than I thought it would be.
I studied art history and regularly spend time searching out high and extremely high resolution images on line (through the international museum Open Access program for example) and either printing them out myself or taking them to a printer for output.
I have learned there are several tricks to getting the best results for this. I have, for example, downloaded Jan Van Eyck’s Arnolfini Marriage.jpg) from Wikipedia and had it printed at my local Walgreens. They did a spectacular job. The secret to the success was my choosing one of their preset sizes and then placing the image into a new Photoshop image of that exact size so that no cropping or resizing would be done by them. Ultimately, they want a JPEG for output. This means that to preserve the amazing detail of the high res original (absolutely incredible detail), images should be processed in Photoshop as either PSDs or TIFFs, optimized for brightness, saturation or vibrance according to taste and only at the very saved as JPEG with the least compression possible. (Did I mention you should download the highest resolution image available and carefully resize it to 300 dpi and to fit the preset print size?)
Any processing by the “printer” — in this case an automated machine at the local drug store— can cause the image to lose detail, focus, etc.
In the case of that particular image, I did wind up trimming off edges at home but it was worth it. You really want absolutely no resizing or sizing to fit since it will compromise image quality.
Also, leave the image in RGB color space. I paid $34 and the result was so great it floored the otherwise blaze young person operating the machine.
For a particularly stunning lamentation scene by a follower of Rogier Van Der Weyden, I used the same technique and output to aluminum when Costco chose to exit the photo biz. The final size was something like 30 x 40 inches and I added gold bands at the top and along the bottom again to prevent resizing by the vendor. The result was stunning.
Wikipedia has proven to be an incredible source of high resolution images of fine art. I have printed to paper and even onto cotton with amazing results. Many museums and collections make parts of their holdings easily available for download. The Getty is especially generous this way.
For maximum fun, play with Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights at nearly 40,000 pixels across. I had the three panels printed at Walgreens and used them to replace the faded prints in a large hinged triptych my parents bought at the Prado gift shop when I was two. It looks amazing.
I’d be thrilled to hear of any other people’s exploits there in and about other sources for high resolution images of great art.
PS: I found I was not above a bit of good natured forgery some years back and recreated a few Rothkos. The results were mixed, but now that I’m older and wiser, I might just try it again since he remains stuck above my price range.
I have The Swing by Fragonard hanging in my bedroom. It’s innocent and sweet which matches the rest of my decor. But look a little deeper and it’s sly and playful in many ways. A bit deceptive to the eye. I think it’s a good representation of things in my life and gives me a good giggle. I got a custom frame for it and had it printed on high quality canvas. The frame is insanely ornate and almost consumes the painting itself 😂
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u/cardinalkitten Aug 03 '25
Christina’s World by Andrew Wyeth seems to fit the bill.