wdross wrote:
There are paintings that were very wide, very tall, and some that were square. But if one looks at all the paintings in museums, castle tours, and very old houses and mansions, they tend to be slightly taller than wide (mostly for portraits). Basically, they are "8X10" in shape. Then photography came along. We "owe" our general "size" shapes to the painters of old.
The ones I looked at did not fit 8X10 format.
Additionally Masters paintings if anything followed the golden ratio which if memory serves is not 8X10.