Hanging a painting in the hallway

Why the hallway is different

Every other room gives a visitor somewhere else to look. A hallway does not. They are in it for eleven seconds, there is nothing else on the walls, they are holding a coat, and the painting is the only thing happening.

That is the whole of the social argument, and it cuts both ways. If you want the painting to be a position rather than a decoration, this is the wall. If you want it to be part of a room, this is the wrong wall, and no amount of careful hanging will make it one.

What people usually decide, having thought about it for a fortnight, is that the hallway is right for the less direct work in the series and wrong for the most direct. That is a sound instinct. The canvases vary far more than the rooms do — where to hang it, room by room makes that argument across the whole house.

Distance is the constraint, and it is measurable

Underneath the nerve there is a number. In a corridor you cannot step back, so the canvas is always seen from about an arm's length, and at that distance a large canvas stops being an image and becomes a surface.

Take roughly 30 cm off the corridor width for the fact that you stand off the opposite wall rather than against it, and use the working rule that canvas height should be no more than one and a half times the viewing distance.

Most Dutch hallways in ordinary houses sit between 90 and 110 cm, which puts them in the first two rows. That is not a small collection to choose from: Natalee (Blue Light) at 70 × 50 cm and the pair of 80 × 60 canvases were made for exactly this kind of wall. Viewing distance, in full works the rule out properly.

The end wall changes everything

There are two kinds of hallway wall and only one of them has the problem above.

A side wall is the one you walk along. Distance is fixed at whatever the corridor gives you, and that is the table in section two.

An end wall — the wall you face as you come through the front door, or at the far end of the landing — is not a hallway wall at all. You approach it down the entire length of the corridor, which means four or five metres of viewing distance, arriving straight on, with the walls funnelling your eye towards it. It is one of the best walls in an ordinary house for a tall canvas, and it is almost always empty.

It is also the least forgiving one socially, because it is straight ahead and nobody has the option of looking elsewhere. Head-on and unavoidable is the strongest possible way to hang something. Choose it on purpose or not at all.

Hall light, and why it is the wrong light

Hallway lighting is a ceiling fitting or a row of downlights, in the middle of the ceiling, which puts the light source almost directly above the canvas. Light falling straight down a vertical surface does two things to a painting of a person: it flattens the modelling that took weeks to build, and it throws the top of the canvas into glare while the bottom third goes dark.

The fix is an ordinary one. Any light aimed at the canvas from an angle of roughly 30 degrees off the wall does the job — a picture light above the frame, a small spot on a track, or a wall light to one side. It is the difference between a painting you notice and a painting that looks like a poster in a corridor.

A hall is also the room where a light is most likely to be missing altogether, which is worth knowing before you hang anything there rather than after. Hanging a painting on a dark wall goes into what light does to skin tones in more detail.

The dull checks nobody makes

• The door swing. Open every door off the hall and watch the handle. A door handle at 105 cm meets a canvas with its bottom edge at 100 cm exactly once.
• The coats. A hall is where wet coats, bags and bicycles live. Do not hang a canvas within reach of a hook that people swing things onto.
• The radiator. Halls very often have one, and the wall above it is the one wall in the corridor to leave empty — see radiators and the walls you should not use.
• The wall type. Hall walls in newer houses are frequently plasterboard partitions rather than the masonry you assume. Knock it first.
• The height. The usual 145 cm centre line applies, with one change: in a corridor nobody stands still, so check it from the doorway rather than from the middle of the hall. How high to hang a painting has the arithmetic.

And the social question underneath all of it, which is not really about the hall: what to say when a guest asks takes three sentences.

Sizes are listed height first on the paintings, so the first number goes straight into the measurements above.

Questions people ask

Can I hang a nude painting in the hallway?

Yes. It is the boldest wall in the house, because a guest meets the painting before they meet you and there is nothing else in a corridor to look at. If you want that, it is the right wall. If you want the painting to be part of a room, it is the wrong one.

What size painting fits a narrow hallway?

In a 90 cm corridor you have about 60 cm of viewing distance, which suits a canvas up to roughly 90 cm tall: 50 by 30, 70 by 50 or 80 by 60 cm. At 120 cm wide the corridor takes anything. The end wall is a separate case, because you approach it down the whole hall.

Does a hallway painting need its own light?

Effectively yes. Hall lighting is almost always a ceiling fitting directly above the wall, and light falling straight down flattens the modelling and puts the lower third of the canvas in shadow. Any light aimed at it from about 30 degrees off the wall fixes it.

Side wall or end wall?

The end wall is the better wall and the bolder choice. You approach it down the length of the corridor, so it has real viewing distance and suits a tall canvas, but it is straight ahead and nobody can look elsewhere. A side wall is passed at an angle, which is easier on a visitor.