Two thick, twisting, splintered tree trunks with broken branches stripped of leaves are set against a dark, wooded landscape beneath a nearly black sky in this horizontal landscape painting.

Tornado in an American Forest

Thomas Cole (American, 1801–1848)

Date: 1831
Medium: oil on canvas
Size: 46½ × 64½ in (117.8 × 164.1 cm)
Museum: National Gallery of Art, Washington, accession 2014.136.117. See the museum’s record
Credit: Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase, Gallery Fund, 1877)

Public domain image courtesy of the National Gallery of Art (Open Access, CC0).

Palette

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Hang it

Pick the furniture and a print size to see it to scale on your wall.

Where Print size

Print: 36 × 48 in, filling the paper (trims 4.3 % of the picture)
Center: 61¼ in (156 cm) from the floor
Above the sofa: 8 in (20 cm) from the sofa to the frame
Ideal width: 56 to 63 in over an 84 in sofa
Why this height: Centered at eye level, this frame would not sit 6 to 10 in above the sofa, so the 8 in gap sets the height.

36 × 48 in landscape print (91 × 122 cm), centered 61¼ in from the floor, 8 in above the sofa. Drawn to scale on a 12 × 8 ft wall.

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Print it

Standard paper sizes that keep this painting’s proportions, the frames that fit them, and how sharp each one prints.

Paper	Filling the paper	Printed whole	Frame	Frame with a 2 in mat	Frame with a 3 in mat	Sharpness
5 × 7 in	trims 0.5 %	5 × 7 in	5 × 7 in ready-made	9 × 11 in custom	11 × 13 in custom	4541 dpi, crisp up close
12 × 16 in	trims 4.3 %	11½ × 16 in	12 × 16 in ready-made	16 × 20 in ready-made	18 × 22 in custom	1892 dpi, crisp up close
18 × 24 in	trims 4.3 %	17¼ × 24 in	18 × 24 in ready-made	22 × 28 in ready-made	24 × 30 in ready-made	1261 dpi, crisp up close
30 × 40 in	trims 4.3 %	28¾ × 40 in	30 × 40 in ready-made	34 × 44 in custom	36 × 46 in custom	756 dpi, crisp up close
36 × 48 in	trims 4.3 %	34½ × 48 in	36 × 48 in ready-made	40 × 52 in custom	42 × 54 in custom	630 dpi, crisp up close

Sharpness is worked out from the largest file the museum offers. Above 300 dpi a print holds up at arm’s length; 150 dpi is plenty for a picture seen from across a sofa.

Download

Free for any use, including commercial: this image is public domain (CC0).

Thumbnail (WebP) 560 × 397 px from Room Paintings
Web image 843 × 597 px from National Gallery of Art
Print file 2,000 × 1,416 px from National Gallery of Art
Original file 32,063 × 22,708 px from National Gallery of Art
The museum’s record of this painting National Gallery of Art

Public domain image courtesy of the National Gallery of Art (Open Access, CC0). You may print, share, change and sell it without asking. Read what that means on our image license page, and how to get a good result in how to print a public-domain painting.