Colour

It would be hard to overstate the importance of colour – not just in interior design and in art but in almost every facet of human life. Every colour comes laden with conscious and unconscious significance that varies from country to country, culture to culture. White, for instance, symbolises purity and peace in the West but in many Eastern cultures the first thing it brings to mind is death!

Of course when you’re decorating your home and choosing wall art to complement your theme it’s mainly just you and your family you need to please. That said, we all seek the approval of those we care about and whose opinion is important to us – and what’s clean and elegantly simple to one person may well be clinically dull to the next. That’s where a well-chosen piece of wall art can make all the difference.

Broadly speaking there are two main approaches to choosing wall art with colour schemes in mind. The first is to pick works incorporating only colours that are already featured in your room’s colour scheme, the dominant piece of art usually sharing its background colour with the wall colour. Alternatively, you could use your room’s basic colour palette as a foundation on which you can hang works with the same colours but perhaps with far bolder shades.

Either way, don’t forget that the undertones of a picture can be as important as the obvious background and foreground – and where highlights in a picture echo features in the room, why not choose more images involving that colour to develop the theme across!