The wall a visitor sees in the first three seconds tells them what kind of home this is. Six entryway compositions — single anchor, vertical portrait, quiet still life, gallery cluster, large-scale landscape, and intimate Cassatt — and the rules that hold each one together.

The wall above the sofa breaks more living rooms than any other. Six rules — width, height, anchor, orientation, colour temperature, and framing — and the paintings that prove each one.

A reading nook is the most demanding interior in the home. The room is small. The lamp is on. The chair holds you for hours. The art on the wall has to compete with neither the book in your hand nor the light overhead — it has to deepen both. Loud paintings exhaust the corner. Decorative posters thin it out. The right anchor reads as company. Below are seven compositions that work in a reading nook. Each centres on a single quiet painting from the canon — Caravaggio, Vermeer,

Ten curator-tested ways to decorate a large blank wall — single oversized prints, salon walls, triptychs, diptychs, leaning consoles, and minimalism done right.