No, the black doesn’t soften the room. It defines it. The painted shopfront and gold lettering give a wall a proper anchor point, and everything warm around it brick tones, brass, aged leather suddenly looks deliberate. Hang it in a hallway at eye level, above a sideboard in a dining room, or in a snug where lamplight can catch the brick colours. It sits happily with dark painted walls, deep green or off-white, and with wool checks, stoneware and old timber. Keep the wall around it fairly plain: busy patterned wallpaper fights the brickwork detail, and cool grey-blue schemes make the warm brick look stranded. One strong piece here beats three small ones. As a canvas the surface reads softer and more painterly from across the room.