How to Hang Pictures 
DRAWING-ROOM AT EASTON NESTON HALL, ENGLAND 
The disposition of the pictures here testifies to the survival into the eighteenth century of the idea that 
pictures were a permanent part of the wall decoration. The different sizes of the pictures are brought into 
harmony by the uniform decoration of stucco, placed about each one. [From "The Decoration of Houses” 
by Edith Wharton and Ogden Codman, Jr. Reproduced by permission of Charles Scribner's Sons.] 
seems to be that anything 
that is enclosed in a frame is 
worthy to he considered a 
picture. If people had the 
moral courage to view their 
belongings with a severely 
judicial eye and exclude the 
poor pictures, most families 
would still have more than 
enough to he effectively dis¬ 
played. There is also room 
for the suggestion that in 
choosing new pictures there 
should be more of the old- 
time regard for the space 
they are to occupy as well 
as their relation to other 
objects. Of course, we buy 
a picture primarily because 
we like it, hut if we have not 
the means of placing it to 
the best advantage we never 
can obtain from it the enjoy¬ 
ment it promised. 
Returning again to the 
problem of arrangement, a 
little consideration will con¬ 
vince one that this is one 
of the inherent problems in the production of 
all works of art and that the same general prin¬ 
ciple of arrangement which underlies the decora¬ 
tion of the Parthenon, of a Gothic cathedral or a 
Renaissance palace, will he found identical with 
that which governs the distribution of ornament 
on a book-cover, the trimming on a fine hat or gown, 
or the grouping of pictures on a wall. The prob¬ 
lem of all art is in one sense the harmonizing of 
many different things and ' uniting them into a 
consistent whole. So that an adequate treatise 
on the hanging of pictures would be in essence 
a treatise on the law^s of composition. But to insist 
on laws even superficially is to hecome didactic 
and to be didactic is simply to he a bore. Dis¬ 
arming criticism by this frank confession and 
admitting furthermore that when one finds oneself 
face to face with the exact definition of principles 
they develop unexpected elusive powers, it may 
be stated crudely and imperfectly that that part 
of art which relates to arrangement, the part with 
which we are concerned, and not to representation 
may he said to he a continual effort to put forms 
together so that the eye will he soothed and caressed. 
Now the eye, especially the trained eye, is very 
sensitive. It might almost be called lazy, for it 
resents being forced to follow along lines leading 
in a great many different directions, to jump sud¬ 
denly from an obtuse angle to an acute angle, from 
a spiral to a straight line, from a very small form 
to a huge one, from black to white, from intense 
brilliant color to low dull tones, from very com¬ 
plicated forms'^ to very simple ones. When the 
eye has adjusted itself to seeing a certain kind 
of color, a certain set of similar sizes and shapes, 
to moving on similar lines, the thing most agreeable 
to its lazy habit is to continue seeing similar color, 
sizes and shapes and moving on similar lines for 
an appreciable length of time. There comes a 
moment, however, when the eye, fatigued by view¬ 
ing too long these similarities, welcomes a change, 
a contrast, and the nice adjustment of this con¬ 
trast so that it agreeably stimulates the sensations 
of the eye and yet gives it no shock, is the most 
perilous and difficult part of the problem of arrange¬ 
ment. Speaking in a large way, and judging from 
the great works of decorative art of all ages, what 
seems most often to have pleased the sensitive 
eye is an arrangement over which it may pass from 
a set of dominant and similar lines, masses and colors 
through a minor set of contrasting lines, masses and 
colors so carefully adjusted that the excitement of 
contrast is administered to the optic nerves at the 
precise instant when the sensation of harmonious 
repose induced by similarity, is about to pass over 
into fatigue. Insufficiently and unscientifically stated, 
this is the basis of all good arrangement, design, or 
composition, however it may be named. 
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