Have you ever wondered what factors influence online shoppers to buy art?

The people who purchase art and wall décor over the web are definitely savvy online shoppers. It takes trust and vision to purchase such a visual and touchy feely piece of art.

The people who buy art online are definitely the early adapters of this market and it is interesting to read their point of view towards shopping online.

OverstockArt.com recently held a survey and asked online shoppers what influences them to buy art online… here is a short sample of the various answers… (more…)

No buts about it… canvas art revitalizes your decor like no other decor essentials can. The art on your wall defines your taste and who you are to the world. It sets your home apart from any other and is the focal point of your perspective.

Where should I hang my Art?
I love to search out possible hanging locations. My favorite is to develop a grouping of oil paintings. In order to develop a grouping you must first test out your collection on the floor by laying out the paintings. As a rule, larger art pieces tend to look better on top with smaller ones below it. If you are trying to achieve a simplistic, contemporary look then I suggest lining the paintings in an orderly fashion. I don’t like offsetting of artworks in a collection; it tends to cause my eyes to twitch…

How high should I hang my Art?
One common miss conception about hanging art is the hanging height. I constantly hear that “artwork must be hung at eye level”. It’s simply not true. Artworks should be arranged and placed according to what’s around them.
It is true that if your walls are 18 feet high, pictures should hang just about six feet off the ground. However, when placing an oil painting over furniture, art should be hung about 6 inches above it. Leave more room above sofas and headboards. And remember, lines tend to conflict above arched furniture.

Hanging the Art
Ingredients: a tape measure, a hammer and small nails. If the art is heavy, you’ll need wall anchors, two per artwork. Some people use picture hangers with integrated hooks, which are somewhat inexpensive and effective, for me a nail always does the trick.

1. Use a pencil to mark the top of the frame.
2. The painting should come with hanging wire on the back, but if it doesn’t cut up a piece of crosswire and clamp it to the frame using heavy-duty staples.
3. Measure the distance from the top of the frame to the nail crosswire. This is where you insert the nail on the wall.

The art on your walls will make you feel more at home. It is a great way to show everyone your taste and your passion.

A lost Van Gogh has been found this month, Wild Vegetation, hidden under another painting. It was discovered in an x-ray of The Ravine, which Van Gogh painted on the same canvas four months later. The Van Gogh Museum said that the painting underneath the Ravine matches an actual drawing that they had from Van Gogh at the time.

A recent research by the Van Gogh Museum, has focused on works by Van Gogh which were not done on canvas.
Supposedly, the painter ran out of materials, specifically canvases, and started painting on virtually any surface he could paint on. Sometimes he painted over existing art, sometimes he used paper, and even cloth.

The examination of the works that Van Gogh created during his time in the mental asylum in Saint Remy reveal that the artist used a tea towel for “The Large Plane Trees” and “Wheatfields in a Mountainous Landscape.”

Van Gogh tended to use unorthodox materials only when he had to, so these oils on tea towel tend to be dated together. Van Gogh was often short of money and materials.

During the 20th century many different art forms and movements came to life. The Dutch painter, Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) was a pioneer in the development of abstraction one of the most important art movement of the times. His works from the early 20th century brought with them a new wave of thought and a surge towards the development of Modern Art as we know it.

Mondrian painted over 250 abstract compositions, as he liked to call it, over the course of 25 years from 1917 to 1944. Each painting was created and re-created, towards an equilibrium of form, color, and surface.

Mondrian called his style “neoplasticism,” which also means “new form” in Dutch. The style was based, he explained, “on an absolute harmony of straight lines and pure colors underlying the visible world.”

Mondrian believed that the rhythms of urban life – were the reoccurring theme for the neoplastic genera. He embraced urban life spending time in Paris (1919-1938), London (1938-1940) and New York (1940-1944), searching each metropolis for clues that would lead him towards the harmony he rejoiced through his paintings.

“I felt that only the Cubists had discovered the right path.”

In 1911, Mondrian was exposed for the first time to Cubism. He was enthralled by this new art form. The Cubism works of Picasso and Brauque were the catalyst that ignited the passion of abstraction in Mondrian’s heart and led him to Paris.

Slowly, Mondrian began challenging the new art form, “Gradually I became aware that Cubism did not accept the logical consequences of its own discoveries.” Mondrian went back to Holland during World War I where he formed a group and began to publish a magazine called De Stijl (The Style). His art became the guiding force of a movement, a movement that was committed to purifying modern art and bringing it into a wide range of disciplines from architecture to furniture design.

In 1918-1919, Mondrian adopted the style he is most noted for today, Neoplaticism, in which pure primary colors and black lines came together in a unity that was neither random nor systematic but intuitive.

In Mondrian’s world, space is no longer a background for depicted objects; instead, the entire painting is an object of its own. Mondrian painted on a tabletop, not an easel, and built his own frames out of narrow strips of wood set back slightly from the canvas surface “to bring the painting forward from the frame… to a more real existence,” as he put it.

As World War II was approaching Mondrian fled Europe and landed in New York City in 1940. For his New York Début in 1942, he re-painted eleven paintings to give them “more boogie-woogie,” as he called it. These paintings known as the boogie-woogie are his most popular work to this day.

Mondrian, then a 70-year-old painter worked hard to try and break the mold of the New York art scene. This quest to unite color and linear lines absorbed all of Mondrian’s power as he worked to break the long colored lines of New York City into a dazzling mosaic of colored blocks.

Mondrian died in 1944, the deceptive simplicity of his work come after a long journey of experimentation with many different styles and movements. His unique Neoplastic style continues to inspire the art, fashion, advertising and design worlds.

Choose the right art for you
The first step is seemingly easy: select the art you love. Forget about what’s hip or what’s popular. If it excites you, get it. A Monet, a Picasso, a Van Gogh reproduction or simply a beautiful hand painted scenic landscape… anything that lights an artistic spark in your heart.

Choosing the right frame for your masterpiece…
When you’ve finalized what painting you’d like and where to put it, it’s time for framing. Think of frames as the final touch on a piece of artwork, like shoes on a suite, they make all the difference! In general, for larger works, wider frames are more decorative and ornamental, and thinner frames are more contemporary and subtle. Take into consideration how much space you’re trying to fill. If you need the piece to be larger, choose a wider molding. If you’re creating a grouping, you may want to control framing costs by keeping things simple.