Every piece of art is unique to the artist who created it, but not all artworks resonate the same with everyone that set eyes on the same piece. People view art differently depending on their tastes. A famous print of the Louvre may resonate with an architect, whereas a historian may place little value on it.
It’s the differences in viewpoints that can lead to frustrations when trying to decide on a print to fill a void on an empty space on your walls or lead you to go with something bland just to fill a void.
Art can truly transform the feel of any setting the prints are displayed in but to experience the best effects, you need to know which type of art resonates with you best.
The 3 Most Common Types of Art and Tips to Help You Decide What’s Right for You
1) Contemporary Art
Contemporary art is often misunderstood as work that has been rushed or ill-thought through. The key to experiencing the most emotion from contemporary art is to look beyond the patterns, shapes, and colours, and try to interpret the mood of the artist at the time they were creating the piece.
For paintings, some of the most vivid contemporary art pieces have visible strokes on the canvas. If you look close and carefully, the weight of the strokes can often be seen. This can enable the viewer to get a sense of the artist’s emotions when they were painting the piece. The colours the artist chose to use can give an insight into their personality and how they were feeling at that time. Bright colours can indicate a joyful artist, earthy tones may indicate the artist being relaxed while painting, and sharp lines, as opposed to wavy curves, let viewers appreciate the focus and attention to detail that went into each outline, shade and tone of the piece.
Contemporary art is likely best suited to those that are able to look beyond the painting and get a feeling for the artist and their experience creating the piece, rather than just the finished painting.
2) Historical Prints
Historical prints are not only representative of vintage periods from centuries ago. Every picture from the past can tell a story from that time. If you have photo albums going back a few decades, there is a good chance you will find a photo of an Aunt or Gran wearing a pinny. For those too young to remember the pinny, it was like a sleeveless dress worn over clothes. Grannies used to wear the pinny when doing the housework. Some had pouches in the front of them where they would keep all their nick-nacks, others were wrap-around and worn in the kitchen while doing household chores.
Photos like that tell the story of a different period of time when people had a different way of life.
Whether you have photos dating back to the 1950s or just 2010, you will notice remarkable differences from the scenery in the background, the furniture in homes, colour schemes, fashion, and hairstyles. All of these can be marvellous types of historic prints to use around the home to create talking points.
3) Realistic Art
Realistic art can be considered to be any type of drawing, painting or sketch that doesn’t use idealism but instead focuses on depicting the realistic scene in a photographic way. This type of art can be of people, pets, or places.
What Type of Art is Best?
None or all of them can be as it depends on individual preference. One of the most important things for displaying the art is framing the pieces in a way that resonates with the type of art it is.
As an example, a historical print framed in an all-white frame may look out of place as historic pieces tend to favour gold and detailed frames. Contemporary art that uses bright colours is often best displayed in either a plain black frame, rather than a traditional oak frame that works better with portraits.
The one consistent among the various types of arts is they each need their own space. Display historical pieces together, realistic art in a separate display and contemporary art is usually ideal as a standalone piece.
The type of art you display in and around your home impacts how you feel each time you view the pieces. For that reason, the best type of art is the type that resonates most with you and makes you feel good when you see it. In many homes, each type is on display somewhere. Just in different rooms, in different frames and displayed in different places. Some will be on the wall, some on a dresser, others inside cabinets.
Whatever type of art makes you feel good, take care to display it in a frame that compliments it and do not let other prints overshadow it by displaying too many pieces too close together.