Wall decor: poster, printed canvas or original artwork?

01Four things that get called a “painting”

• The poster: an image printed on paper, in the thousands. It costs little, gets changed often, and that is perfectly fine.
• The printed canvas: a photograph or a digital image printed on a canvas stretched over a stretcher. From a distance, it looks like a painting. Up close, you see the print pattern, and the surface is flat. It is what most home decor websites sell under the word “painting”.
• The reproduction, or art print: a quality print of a painting or drawing that already exists, sometimes numbered and signed. It is an image of the work, not the work. Not to be confused with a photograph or an etching printed by its author in a counted edition: there, the print is the work.
• The original work: the painting or the drawing, made by hand in a single copy; the photograph or the etching, printed by their author, signed and numbered, in a counted edition. The texture, the trace of the tool, the one and only or the counted.

None of the four is anything to be ashamed of. But they don’t cost the same price, don’t last the same time, and don’t do the same thing to a room.

02What it costs, and how long it lasts

A poster costs a few tens of euros, frame not included, and its colours fade within a few years in the light. A printed canvas costs between a few tens and a few hundred euros depending on the size; it lasts longer, but it is still a print, and its resale value is nil.

An original work by a Belgian artist starting out often begins at around one to a few hundred euros for a small or medium format, and rises with the size and the artist’s track record. It lives for decades in the right place, and it keeps a value: that of a unique thing, made by someone.

These prices are rules of thumb, not rates. They change with the size, the technique and the artist. The guide on paintings and canvases by Belgian artists explains how a price is formed.

03When a poster or a printed canvas is enough

• If you rent, when you are leaving in two years and don’t want to drill three times over.
• In a corridor, a toilet, a utility room: the walls you pass through without looking.
• For a child’s bedroom whose tastes change every six months.
• When the budget is a poster budget, quite simply. An empty wall is worse than a poster you love.

04When the original work is worth it

On the wall you look at every day. A flat image, you stop seeing after a week; a painting changes with the morning light and the evening light, and the eye keeps coming back. That is what makes a room look lived in rather than furnished.

For the room that sets the tone: the living room, the hallway, the study wall where you spend your days. For a gift that matters. And for the first time: a small original work instead of the third poster, and you understand the difference.

What you pay extra for isn’t the image: it is the uniqueness, the texture, and a story - who made it, where you met them. That is what you tell your guests.

05Mixing the two on the same wall

Nothing forces you to choose. A wall of frames that mixes posters, family photographs and a single original work works very well: the original gives the whole its value, and the posters set the scene around it.

• Put the original work in the centre, at eye level; the posters around it.
• A single type of frame, or two at most, and the same gap everywhere.
• Replace a poster with an original every year or two: the wall changes without ever being empty.

06Finding an original work in Belgium

Belgian artists painting without a gallery are many, and an affordable original work is closer than you think: an artist market, an open studio, an Instagram account, a platform that organises the meeting.

That is what arvel organises: a gallery for every Belgian artist, original works, 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.