Using Paintings in Home Decorating
Category: Interior Decorating Blog
Posted/Updated: 04/10/2010 13:09:11
Views: 3549
I grew up in a household where the only kind of painting my parents ever hung on the walls featured a vase with a bouquet of flowers, surrounded by an excessively ornate golden frame. Everything was always burgundy and gold. The walls were always a pale yellow and everything had to match. As I became older and started decorating on my own, I realized that there were so many different ways to feature a work of art.
I realized that a true work of art stands on its own. I can imagine that many artists would be offended if a homeowner approached them and said “Hey, I loved your painting. The background color of your painting matches my sofa perfectly, that's exactly what I was looking for.” The artist did not create the painting to match a sofa; he probably created it to express a message or to convey a mood or emotion. Whatever the purpose of a painting is to the artist, one thing is for certain – he put time, effort and thought into creating it. Therefore, I believe that it is up to us decorators to honor this and thoughtfully incorporate pieces of art into our designs.
Here are a few designers who I believe have done a great job incorporating artwork into their designs:
New York interior designer Diana Vinoly of
Diana Vinoly Interiors proves that sometimes you can take the simplest thing and make it extraordinary if you use it in an unexpected way. She used simple sketches, but she made them a focal point by hanging one painting and placing the other two paintings on and underneath the bedside table. Surely, if someone had told me to display a painting underneath a table, I'd think they're crazy. Here, it works because there is enough space under the table to show off the painting. Likewise, the painting is large enough to be noticed and thus works flawlessly in the space.
If your painting is too small, embellish it. That's what French designer
Olivier Gagnere did in his Paris apartment (photo courtesy of Simon Upton for
Elle Decor). He used paintings by artist Marine Archang and upholstered them in
Donghia fabric. The distressed print on the fabric gives it that old world, architectural semblance, while the landscape theme of the paintings give this artwork depth, as if one is looking through a window. Gagnere's project is an inexpensive way to create a large painting for a large area that needs to be covered. And let's not forget, embellishments like these create a custom look that nobody else has.
This room, designed by
Paula Perlini, has too many unique features to list. I'd like to focus on the paintings above the bed. Just like Vinoly, Paula Perlini also shows that sometimes a simple painting can become extraordinary because of the way that it is displayed. Perlini, however, takes it a step further. She not only displays the paintings in a thoughtful pattern, but she also intrigues us by her sense of symmetry in her design. This photo was featured in the July 2007 issue of
House Beautiful.
Fine art so good, it deserves its own seat. That's probably what renowned interior designer
Vicente Wolf thought when he arranged his photography collection in his Manhattan loft. Works displayed include those of Alexander Rodchenko, Man Ray and others. Besides the fact that it is a brilliant idea to display photographs on random chairs (which somehow miraculously work together even though they are mismatched), I also have to agree that fine art like this deserves its own seat.
Comments on Using Paintings in Home Decorating
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cheri
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05/06/2010 19:21:17
I like the pictures in the purple room. Honestly the last picture with the pictures on the chairs looks a bit silly. But I guess when you're a big designer everything you do is somehow revolutionary.
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