A large painting for a large wall: size, price, and how to hang it

01When the wall calls for a large format

A wall of more than three metres, a high ceiling, a living room open onto the kitchen, a stairwell: these walls swallow anything under a metre. You hang a 50 cm frame there, and the wall looks like it is still waiting for something. It is the most common mistake, and the easiest to avoid.

A large format is generally a canvas whose longer side is over 100 cm. Beyond 150 cm, we talk about a very large format, and that is often where the room tips over: the painting stops being decoration and becomes the place.

02What size, exactly

Above a piece of furniture, the two-thirds rule still holds: two-thirds the width of the sofa or the sideboard. For a 280 cm corner sofa, that comes to around 180 cm wide. On a bare wall, aim for between half and two-thirds of the width of the wall, and leave at least 30 to 40 cm of free wall on each side: a painting that touches the corners suffocates.

• The test that never fails: masking tape in the exact dimensions, on the wall, for two days. Look from the doorway, sitting, standing.
• A landscape format lengthens a room; a portrait format lifts a low ceiling. Square is the hardest to place on a large wall.
• If you are torn between two sizes, take the larger. Nobody regrets a painting that is too big; everybody regrets one that is too small.

03One piece, or in two or three parts

A very large format on a single canvas is the strongest, and the hardest to transport. A diptych - two canvases that read together - or a triptych give the same width in pieces that fit through a door, and each part hangs on its own.

The other route is a wall of several: four to six medium works by the same artist, hung close together, with the same 5 to 8 cm gap everywhere. It tells more, it often costs less, but it calms the room less than a single large canvas.

04The price of a large format

The price rises with the size, but not in proportion. Many artists add height and width in centimetres and multiply by their own coefficient, often between 2 and 5 when starting out: a 100 × 150 cm canvas then lands between €500 and €1,250, and a 150 × 200 cm between €700 and €1,750. These are observed orders of magnitude, not a price list: no federation publishes these figures, and Cultuurloket, the public contact point for the sector in Belgium, recommends a completely different calculation, based on the time spent and the cost of materials.

What to remember: a large format by a Belgian artist starting out often costs less than a sofa, and it will outlast it. And artists who paint large often struggle to sell those canvases, for want of a place to show them: that is when there is room to talk.

The guide on paintings and canvases by Belgian artists explains how a price is formed, and what makes it move.

05The door, the stairs and the car

A 150 × 200 cm canvas on a stretcher doesn’t fit in an ordinary car, and not always in a stairwell. Before you buy, measure the front door, the narrowest passage and the turn of the stairs, diagonally. A canvas often fits at an angle where it doesn’t fit straight.

• An artist can deliver it themselves, or stretch the canvas at your place: a rolled canvas fits anywhere, and goes back on its stretcher in an hour.
• A specialist carrier packs and insures, but for a large format, that runs into hundreds of euros.
• The handover in person avoids all of that: you see the work, you agree on a day, and the artist knows better than anyone how to carry it.

06Hanging a large painting

• Two hanging points, never just one: the painting stays straight and the weight is shared. For a very large format, a bar or a rail across the full width.
• A fixing suited to the wall - plaster, hollow brick, concrete - and to twice the actual weight. A canvas on a stretcher weighs little; a large glazed frame weighs a lot.
• The centre of the painting at eye level, 145 to 150 cm, or a little lower if it is mostly seen sitting down. On a high wall, resist the urge to raise it: it would float.
• Two people, always. You hold, you step back, you look from the doorway, and only then do you drill.

That is what arvel organises: a gallery for every Belgian artist, original works - including the large formats that galleries don’t have the room to show - and a handover in person. The price you see is the price you pay, and the artist keeps all of it. The client’s money is held until the handover, and refunded if the work doesn’t match. Art doesn’t travel: we meet.

arvel isn’t open yet. Today the site lets you take your place on the waiting list, nothing more. We would rather write it than let you guess.