Ideas & Advice

Picture Lights

Artwork creates lively, thought-provoking environments. It's really the finishing touch on your home and an extension of your interests and personality. Traditional lighting can add mystique, but Picture lights will make your artwork pop by creating visual interest and focal points in your special nooks and areas.

Adding depth, color, and ambiance, picture lighting has the power to transform any space and create romantic or dreamy scenes. As you can imagine, art lighting often involves a few special features that lend style and convenience to functionality in surprising ways. By coupling features, you can really elevate the overall presence of your painting lights in exciting ways.

If you’re in the market for new picture lights, explore this guide to learn about the following:

• Picture light features
• Ideas for choosing the best picture lights for your unique style
• Choosing the right size brightness with picture lights
• Where to place picture lights

Picture Light Features

Picture lights are perfect for highlighting your favorite painting or picture. Whether you are looking to light an entire gallery or just illuminate one painting at a time, dimmable picture lights, remote control art lights, cordless picture lights, and slim profile picture frame lights are great options to choose from.

For example, dimmable picture lights give you the power to control the intensity of light cast on your art. This can help create ambiance and provide greater control on the lumen output to match your mood.

Cordless picture lights, also known as battery-operated picture lights, are ideal for picture frames not near an outlet. They come in a flexible design that’s easy to use. They also don’t require any wires and turn on by flipping a switch or pressing a button.

Remote control picture lights, on the other hand, provide ease of use from outside or inside a house using a smartphone. One of their main advantages is being able to control a room’s lighting with the help of remote technology.

If you don't want your art lights to draw attention away from the artwork itself, look for slim profile picture lights featuring shapely contours and crisp, clean lines with curved edges for a seamless design that blends with the scene.

Ideas for Choosing the Best Picture Lights for Your Unique Style

With functionality squared away, you can turn your focus to style. From contemporary picture lights to industrial options and everything in between, you'll want to look at style from a few different perspectives to make the best choice.

First ask yourself, what art am I showcasing? From there, what style elements have I incorporated throughout the rest of my home? If you lean toward eclectic styles, think about how your picture lights will interact with other room elements and décor.

Below is a quick visual aid to give you a general idea of the appearance of picture lights across different popular styles.

For example, transitional picture lighting boasts versatility, and can generally adapt to most styles. Transitional LED picture lights across antique brass, silver, black, and rubbed bronze finishes.

Contemporary and modern picture lights come with a slimmer profile, remote control options, sweeping silhouettes, and finishes of distressed bronze, antique brass, or even nickel.

Lastly, traditional picture lights are always an option, with plug-in options featuring broader shades and more traditional finishes of bronze, brass, mahogany bronze, and gold.

Choosing the Right Size Brightness with Picture Lights

There are important questions to consider when thinking about the brightness level for your picture lights. For example, how bright should a picture light be, and should it fully illuminate its subject without extending beyond the frame?

We recommend carefully examining the wattage and lumens, or brightness, of your picture lights. Any picture light over 200 watts has the potential for "washing out" your art and creating discoloration over time.

Having more lumens in your picture light will help the art stand out from surrounding lighting with a dramatic spotlighting effect. Our selection offers a broad range, from 240 lumens or less to 1,999 lumens.

Picture frame lights also come in 1-, 2- and 3-light (or more) options to give you greater control over brightness and light diffusion.

Where to Place Picture Lights

How high or low you hang picture lights can affect the aesthetic of a room. We recommend placing them five to seven inches above the top of your art.

Make sure the base of the light is above the top of the frame by at least one inch. Picture lights also come with adjustable angles for distributing light. As a rule of thumb, the ideal angle to reduce glare is 30 degrees.

Bellacor has been a leading picture light retailer since 2000. We provide top-of-the-line products to meet any budget and style.