No, the soft blue-grey doesn’t soften the room. It defines it. Everything else in the room starts taking its cue from that water the paint on the walls looks calmer, the timber looks warmer, and clutter suddenly looks like clutter. Hang it where people slow down: above a bed, at the top of a hallway, or on the wall beside a reading chair. It sits happily on chalky off-white or pale green walls, next to linen, cane and stoneware in muted greens and greys. Keep the surrounding shelf sparse two or three objects, not ten. Avoid crowding it with high-gloss chrome, neon accents or busy geometric pattern, which flattens the brushwork. On fine-art paper the loose paint marks and the pale sky keep their softness.