Abstract Paintings for the Living Room

Color and shape for their own sake, from the painters who first let go of the subject. Because guests see this wall first, we keep the quiet classics here: scenes with air and distance, early abstract compositions, interiors flooded with light. Here are 12 paintings for the living room, each an abstract or geometric composition, with works by Piet Mondrian, Wassily Kandinsky and Georges Seurat.

All 954 paintings for the living room

A Sunday on La Grande Jatte — 1884, Georges Seurat 24 × 36 in landscape print (61 × 91 cm), centered 55¼ in from the floor, 8 in above the sofa. Drawn to scale on a 12 × 8 ft wall.

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12 abstract paintings

Large painting of people in a crowded park, brushstrokes are dots.

Georges Seurat A Sunday on La Grande Jatte — 1884, 1884–86, border added 1888–89 Art Institute of Chicago

A heronǳ silhouette sits amongst the brush in a golden hued forest.

George Inness The Home of the Heron, 1893 Art Institute of Chicago

No te aha oe riri (Why Are You Angry?), Paul Gauguin, 1896, oil on jute canvas

Paul Gauguin No te aha oe riri (Why Are You Angry?), 1896 Art Institute of Chicago

The Races at Longchamp, Édouard Manet, 1866, oil on canvas

Édouard Manet The Races at Longchamp, 1866 Art Institute of Chicago

Vibrant yellow, red, blue, and green painting of landscape with trees and mountains.

Wassily Kandinsky Landscape with Two Poplars, 1912 Art Institute of Chicago

Vibrant colored painting of beachscape with figures, structure, and ox pulled cart.

Wassily Kandinsky Painting with Troika, January 18, 1911 Art Institute of Chicago

A square white tile, rotated 90 degrees, crossed by black lines intersecting at 90-degree angles. A few of the shapes thus formed—some partial squares, some rectangles—are colored in a single shade of yellow, blue, black, or red.

Piet Mondrian Lozenge Composition with Yellow, Black, Blue, Red, and Gray, 1921 Art Institute of Chicago

Abstract painting in various bright colors—yellow, blue, red, green, orange, pink—with lines indicating building-like structures as well as canons in the lower right corner.

Wassily Kandinsky Improvisation No. 30 (Cannons), 1913 Art Institute of Chicago

Farm near Duivendrecht, Piet Mondrian, c. 1916, oil on canvas

Piet Mondrian Farm near Duivendrecht, c. 1916 Art Institute of Chicago

Irregular, geometric shapes in burnt orange, pale peach, light blue, forest and mint green, brown, taupe, gray, and black are layered and spread across this horizontal, abstract painting. They are mostly flat planes of color.

Juan Gris Glass and Checkerboard, c. 1917 National Gallery of Art

Abstract line composition of black lines at right angles forming quadrants including a gray square at upper left and a gray rectangle and red rectangle at lower right, against a white background.

Piet Mondrian Composition (No. 1) Gray-Red, 1935 Art Institute of Chicago

Composition with Red, Yellow, and Blue, Piet Mondrian, 1927, oil on canvas

Piet Mondrian Composition with Red, Yellow, and Blue, 1927 Cleveland Museum of Art

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Bedroom 702 shared
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Home Office 289 shared

More for the living room

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Rooms that share paintings