Dark Academia Wallpaper

Choosing dark academia wallpaper

Where it works

This is a study colourway. It likes rooms with books in them, a desk, a reading chair. A home office or a snug. A dining room that doubles as the library, or a bedroom with dark timber. Peony Bouquet and Midnight Bouquet are the full version, blooms on solid black, one trimmed in antique-gold scrollwork and the other with old-master shading. Too much theatre for a living room? Teal Protea and Cacao Pods put botanicals on deep navy and bring it down a notch. Dusk Meadow grows up from the bottom of the panel, so we wouldn't cut it short. Give it the whole height of the wall.

Picking between the designs

It comes down to flowers or foliage. The flowers are painted blooms on black or near-black, and Painted Bouquet, Midnight Peony and Night Garden sit in that group with the two bouquets above. The foliage gets its drama from leaf shape, not colour. Brown Leaves has copper oak leaves and purple grapes. Copper Foliage and Acorn Thistle work the same way, and so do Cacao Pods and Teal Protea. Between the two camps you get the meadows on distressed teal plaster (Dusk Meadow, Wild Daisy, Wildflower Meadow), which are the gentlest way into the look. White Anemone is the compromise. Black ground, white flowers, pale sage and pewter leaves, and not a speck of red anywhere.

Related

The florals overlap with moody floral wallpaper and the foliage with dark botanical wallpaper. The period feel carries over into Victorian wallpaper. The look keeps borrowing from one group of Victorian painters in particular, and What is the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood is about them.