How to hang wall art using the golden ratio.

The one height that works

Galleries hang pictures so that the centre of the work sits 145 to 155 centimetres from the floor — eye level for a standing adult. Almost every picture hung at home is higher than that, because people centre it on the wall instead of on themselves. Measure 150 cm up from the floor, and put the centre of the picture there. If the room is mostly used sitting down — a dining room, a lounge with low seating — drop it to 135 to 140 cm.

Over furniture, the rule changes: leave 15 to 25 cm between the top of the sofa, bed or sideboard and the bottom of the frame. The picture should belong to the furniture, not float above it. If following the eye-level rule would put it higher than that gap, the furniture wins.

How big it should be

This is where the ratio earns its keep. A picture over a piece of furniture looks right when its width is roughly the width of the furniture divided by 1.618 — about 60 percent. Over a 200 cm sofa that is 120 to 125 cm; over a 140 cm sideboard, about 85 cm. Wider than that and the picture competes; narrower and it looks lost.

On an empty wall with nothing beneath, use the wall itself. Take the width of the wall, divide by 1.618, and that is the largest width the picture should be; divide again for a comfortable minimum. A 3.5 metre wall takes a work between about 135 and 215 cm wide. Most people go smaller than this and regret it; a single large work almost always beats three small ones on a big wall.

Where on the wall

Centred is not always right. If the wall has a feature — a window, a fireplace, a doorway — the eye already has a centre, and the picture reads best at the golden section of the remaining space: 38 percent in from the nearer edge, 62 percent from the further. On a plain wall, centre it on the furniture beneath rather than on the wall, and let the wall’s own asymmetry be.

For a portrait-format work on a wide wall, put it at the section rather than the middle and leave the larger side empty. Empty wall is not wasted; it is what lets the picture be seen.

Hanging a pair or a group

Two works of the same size: hang them 5 to 8 cm apart, and treat the pair as one picture for the width rule above. Two works of different sizes: the larger goes at the section, the smaller sits beside it with their centres aligned, or with the smaller one’s top edge at the larger one’s golden section — 62 percent of the way up. It sounds fussy and looks inevitable.

Three or more: choose one anchor, place it at the section, and grow the group outward from it, keeping the gaps equal (5 to 8 cm) and the outer edges of the group inside the width rule. Lay the arrangement out on the floor first, photograph it, and hang from the photograph. A gallery wall is a single composition; it should have a resting point, and the largest or darkest work is usually it.

Frames, mats and the wall colour

A mat — the card border inside the frame — is where the ratio is most often abused. Equal borders on all four sides look mechanical; a bottom border slightly deeper than the others, about 1.2 to 1.3 times, looks right, because the eye reads a picture as sitting slightly high otherwise. For the gold-on-dark works in this archive, a narrow black or dark walnut frame with no mat, or a wide off-white mat with a thin black frame, both work. Avoid gold frames on gold work.

On wall colour: the dark works (black grounds, navy, charcoal) sit best on pale walls, where they read as windows into depth. The white and pearl works want a mid-tone wall — warm grey, sage, a dusty blue — so that the paper does not disappear into it. Very few of these works want a white wall and a white frame; that combination is for posters.

Practical fixing

Anything over 60 cm wide needs two hooks, spaced at the golden section of the frame width — that is, not at the edges, and not in the middle, but about 38 percent in from each side. Two hooks keep a picture level and stop it swinging when a door closes. Use a spirit level on the top edge, not the wire. For metal prints and acrylic, which come with a subframe, the fixing is a French cleat: a strip on the wall and a strip on the print that hook together. It takes ten minutes and holds forever.

Works that were made with these walls in mind: The Sovereign Lounge for a wide sofa wall, The Celestial Navigator over a bed, and The Sovereign Ledger for the wall behind a desk.