Painting

Paintings are simple, low-resolution versions of a canvas. Most of the twenty-six current canvases are by Kristoffer Zetterstrand and are shrunk to a low resolution to fit Minecraft's graphical theme. Five more are edits or new paintings. A random image from among these is chosen each time a painting is placed. Paintings are currently non flammable and protect covered flammable blocks from catching on fire.

Paintings can only be placed on flat, vertical surfaces. An easy way to get a painting to fill up an area is to mark the bounds with any solid block and place it in the bottom-left corner. It expands canvas size to the top-right to fill up the wall the best it can. Going up and right one block increases the chance for paintings 4x2 or bigger, though it may still take a few tries to get a large painting.

If hit with a throwable item (snowball, arrow, etc.), the painting will drop from the wall and can be picked up and placed again. Arrows will disappear when they hit a painting. Lightning and TNT will also knock down paintings.

Pocket Edition
Used as decoration.

Crafting
Paintings can be crafted with any color of wool. The color of wool used does not have an influence of the picture chosen when the painting is placed.

Paintings will drop when any supporting block is removed, making the creation of "Secret Doors" more difficult. You can still attach a larger painting to a block beside a door, and it will cover the door, making it hidden. Note that ladders, signs, and pressure plates technically count as full blocks, but only signs, doors, and pressure plates can be used to aid in the creation of secret passages. Also, trying to open a door behind a painting may knock the painting off the wall.

Paintings may additionally be used to hide chests in walls, as the painting will not prevent a player from opening the chest. This is especially useful on large multi-player servers.

Paintings are not technically a block, and thus can simultaneously exist with water and torches in the same space as itself. Larger paintings on walls covered with torches can still be removed by left clicking. Players and mobs are able to walk through paintings, and light shows through paintings as well.

The lower left edge of a painting is not always the block you put the painting on, some of the larger paintings extend down and to the left of the block you placed the painting.

If rain hits a painting, it may be blackened.

Canvases
There are 26 paintings in the game. These are mostly based on paintings by Kristoffer Zetterstrand, who also created the Minecraft versions.

Pocket and Pi Edition
In Pocket Edition (since 0.5.0) and Pi Edition (since 0.1), there are four additional 2x2 tile paintings with no clear purpose or use. Using IDA and the Android libminecraftpe.so file, it has been found that the paintings are referenced from Pocket Edition game code, particularly in the "Motive::getAllMotivesAsList(void)" method (get all paintings), but the "Painting::setRandomMotive(int)" method excludes them as possibilities for a random painting. Artist and purpose of these paintings are both unknown.

Trivia

 * To hide a secret room, placing a painting over an open area prevents the doorway from showing, though can still be walked through.
 * Villagers however, can interact with doors hidden by paintings, easily giving away the secret.
 * A way to prevent this is to use signs instead. This way when someone (or something) enters it, no noise will be made, making it very stealthy.
 * On 26 April 2011 Notch stated that the auto mapping code can be used to share custom paintings and books in the future.
 * Some reports indicate that if a creeper explosion destroys walls with paintings on them, the paintings will fall off the walls and are able to be retrieved.
 * In SMP, if a player is standing behind a painting, other players do not see their name.
 * If a block is neighboring a painting, the painting will appear almost totally black.
 * Paintings' lighting being fixed is listed twice in the updates for the Minecraft news.
 * Paintings are not actually attached to the wall. If you look closely, there is actually a space between the painting and the wall. It may be seen using signs and a 1x2 painting (vertical). It is seen most clearly when a painting is just big enough to cover up a wall of signs.(Possibly because they are supposed to be hung on the wall, and not attached fully)
 * If creeper block damage is turned off paintings can still be destroyed by creepers because of the fact that they are entities, not blocks.
 * The texture on the back of a painting is almost the same texture of wooden planks. (It is darkened slightly.)
 * Paintings are not blocks, but are entities. A simple way to test this is by placing them on a cactus. Another way is to check your "F3" and look how many "E"s there are. This shows how many entities you are viewing.
 * In the Minecraft.jar file, there are textures that cannot spawn on paintings in the paintings file.
 * In Pocket and Pi edition, there are four additional paintings. There is no information on them however and they can not be accessed in-game.