Abstract art is what you buy when you know exactly what the wall needs and none of it is a subject. You know it should be warm rather than cool, that it has to be quiet because the room is already busy, and that it must be roughly a metre wide. What you do not know — and have no reason to know — is whether it should be a mountain, a vase or a hare. An abstract print lets you answer the questions you can answer and skip the one you cannot.
Start with the two decisions you can actually make
Every abstract print can be placed on two axes, and between them they narrow a whole catalogue to a handful of prints.
| Low contrast | High contrast | |
|---|---|---|
| Soft forms | Recedes completely. For rooms that are already full — bedrooms, small living rooms | Calm shapes, strong edges. The safest choice on a large empty wall |
| Hard forms | Quiet geometry. Good in a hallway where you pass close | A focal point. One per room, and nothing competing on the same wall |
Contrast is the axis people underrate. Two prints in identical colours behave completely differently depending on how far apart the lightest and darkest areas are: a pale ochre shape on cream disappears at three metres, while the same ochre against charcoal is visible from the next room. Decide how much the wall should announce itself before you look at a single image.
Match the third colour, not the first
The usual method is to pick a print in the colour of the sofa. It rarely works, because an exact match reads as a coordinated set from a catalogue, and a near-match reads as an error. What works better is to find a print whose secondary colour picks up something already in the room — the brass of a lamp, the green of a plant, the warmth in an oak floor — while its dominant colour is something the room does not have yet.
That way the print belongs to the room without repeating it. It is also why abstracts with three or four colours are more useful than abstracts with one: more chances to find a connection.
The Hug - Studio IMO
The Hundertwasser House - Enikő Marosváry-Kramcsák
Milky Way - Alesandr Mihaltchuk
My People - Studio IMO
Open Up - Studio IMO
Group Chat - Studio IMO
Go bigger than feels sensible
Abstract prints are the format where under-buying hurts most. A representational image at 30×42 is still legible — you can see it is a bird. An abstract at 30×42 with three shapes on it just looks like a small square of colour, because there is no content to compensate for the lack of scale.
A rough guide by wall width, using the two-thirds rule against the furniture below where there is any:
| Free wall width | Single abstract |
|---|---|
| Under 100 cm | 50×70 portrait |
| 100-180 cm | 70×100 |
| 180-280 cm | 70×100 landscape, or two 50×70 with a 6 cm gap |
| Over 280 cm | 100×140 — at this width it is the correct choice, not a bold one |
The largest sheet lives in the extra-large range, and every format is measured out in the poster size guide. Bear in mind that our 50×70 is not A2 and 70×100 is not A1, so an existing frame from elsewhere may not take one.
The frame does more here than anywhere else
With no subject in the image, the rectangle itself becomes part of the composition, and the frame is the outer edge of that rectangle. Black turns a soft abstract into something deliberate and slightly severe. Oak lets colour fields bleed outwards and keeps them warm. On a print that is mostly pale, black is usually the right answer, because the image has no outline of its own. All five sizes come in oak and black; the coloured frames in the frame range stop at 50×70, which rules them out for the two largest formats.
Hang the centre at 145 cm as usual — with no horizon or subject to guide the eye, an abstract hung high has nothing to correct it, and the hanging height guide sets out the one exception, above a bed. If quiet is what you are after, the minimalist selection is where the low-contrast end of this category lives.