Background Paint Colors For Artwork

If you're an art collector, you know that to best enhance a painting, proper attention needs to be given to external factors that have an impact on the way a piece is displayed. If you're moving into a new house, think about how you will want to display your pieces before you paint. Once you have an idea of how and where you will hang the individual pieces, you can think about choosing wall colors that will help show your works to best advantage.

There are different ways to handle wall color in relation to artwork. Museums, for example, have a variety of methods for choosing the wall colors over which art works will be displayed. The designer may choose to paint the walls in colors popular during the era of the artists. By this method, a room in which works by an artist of the 19th century will be displayed would be painted red.

Evoking The Era

Another museum design technique is to choose hues that bring to mind a city or an era associated with a period of art. Italian works from the renaissance period, according to this idea, would be displayed against walls of Burnt Sienna or a brownish orange color.

In some cases, the choice of wall colors to serve as a backdrop for a particular artist's works is a no-brainer. Artists often specify the wall colors for their exhibited works. Even if the artist is no longer alive, it should be possible to discover what wall colors the artist had requested at the time the original exhibition opened.

Most artists favor a particular palette. Sometimes a designer will choose a color that is least used but appears in most of the artist's works and uses this as the background wall color. This helps to bring out the subtleties of the paintings and ties the look of the room together in a very neat fashion.

Neutral Tone

If the paintings are very disparate in terms of color, it is best to choose a wall color in a neutral tone, such as gray, sand, or cream.

If you don't plan to embark on a new paint job for your new home, think about which paintings would look best in a particular room. If the room is painted with a color that is found in your painting in only small bits, that would be a great place to hang your painting.

Bright Colors

If a particular room was painted with a very dark color, you may wish to brighten things up a bit with a painting filled with bright and cheery colors.

Black and white photos, charcoal sketches, and in general, any pieces in black and white tones will work well with just about any wall color.