Painting

Rarity color	Common
Renewable	Yes
Stackable	Yes (64)
Drops	1 Painting

Paintings are decorative entities that hang on walls.

Obtaining[]

Crafting[]

Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Stick + Any Wool

Paintings can be crafted with any color of wool. The color of the wool used does not influence the picture chosen when the painting is placed. Once placed, it displays a random painting.

Breaking[]

To remove a painting from a wall, the player can attack it, break one of its supporting blocks, cover one square of it with a block, hit it with an arrow, egg, ender pearl, snowball, or fire charge, or subject it to an explosion. The painting then drops as an item. Arrows that hit paintings disappear.

Trading[]

Master-level shepherd villagers sell 3 paintings for 2 emeralds.

Usage[]

Placement[]

Paintings can be placed on the sides of solid blocks, or signs. The other blocks holding the painting can be almost anything. There are several different sizes of paintings (see below). When placed, a painting checks for the largest amount of space it has. It then chooses a random painting of that size. The player can add blocks around the painting to ensure it is the size wanted. When the supporting blocks are removed, the painting breaks after 20 game ticks (1 second) if no supporting blocks are replaced during that interval.

Properties[]

Being an entity, paintings can simultaneously exist in the same space as blocks such as water or torches. Specifically, they can share the space with any block whose collision box does not intersect its hitbox.

Players and mobs are able to walk through paintings, as long as the blocks supporting the painting allow it. Light propagates through paintings as well.

Paintings are non-flammable.

Canvases[]

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

Size	Original	Name	Resource location	Description	Java Edition version added
1×1 blocks 16×16 pixels	"Albanian"	Alban	`alban`	A man wearing a fez in a stood next to a house and a bush. As the name of the painting suggests, it may be a landscape in Albania.	Indev 20100223
1×1 blocks 16×16 pixels	"de_aztec"	Aztec	`aztec`	Free-look perspective of the map de_aztec from the video game Counter-Strike.	Indev 20100223
1×1 blocks 16×16 pixels	"de_aztec"	Aztec2	`aztec2`	Free-look perspective of the map de_aztec from the video game Counter-Strike.	Indev 20100223
1×1 blocks 16×16 pixels	"Target successfully bombed"	Bomb	`bomb`	Painting of the map de_dust2 from the video game Counter-Strike, named “target successfully bombed" in reference to the game.	Indev 20100223
1×1 blocks 16×16 pixels	"Kebab med tre pepperoni"	Kebab	`kebab`	A kebab with three green chili peppers.	Indev 20100223
1×1 blocks 16×16 pixels	"Paradisträd"	Plant	`plant`	Still life painting of two plants in pots. “Paradisträd" is Swedish for “money tree", which is a common name for the depicted species in Scandinavia.	Indev 20100223
1×1 blocks 16×16 pixels	"Wasteland"	Wasteland	`wasteland`	Painting of a view of some wastelands; a small animal (presumably a rabbit) is sitting on the window ledge.	Indev 20100223
2×1 blocks 32×16 pixels	"Bonjour monsieur Courbet"	Courbet	`courbet`	Two hikers with pointy beards seemingly greeting each other. This painting is based on Gustave Courbet's painting The Meeting or "Bonjour, Monsieur Courbet".	Indev 20100223
2×1 blocks 32×16 pixels	"The pool"	Pool	`pool`	Some men and women skinny-dipping in a pool over a cube of sorts. Also there is an old man resting in the lower-right edge.	Indev 20100223
2×1 blocks 32×16 pixels	"Seaside"	Sea	`sea`	Painting of a view of mountains and a lake, with a small photo of a mountain and a bright-colored plant on the window ledge.	Indev 20100223 / Alpha v1.1.1
2×1 blocks 32×16 pixels	"Seaside"	Creebet	`creebet`	Painting of a view of mountains and a lake, with a small photo of a mountain and a creeper looking at the viewer through a window.	Alpha v1.1.1
2×1 blocks 32×16 pixels	"sunset_dense"	Sunset	`sunset`	Painting of a view of mountains at sunset.	Indev 20100223
1×2 blocks 16×32 pixels	"Graham"	Graham	`graham`	Painting of King Graham, the player character in the video game series King's Quest.	Alpha v1.1.1
1×2 blocks 16×32 pixels	"Wanderer"	Wanderer	`wanderer`	A low-resolution version of Caspar David Friedrich's famous painting Wanderer above the Sea of Fog.	Indev 20100223
2×2 blocks 32×32 pixels	"Bust"	Bust	`bust`	Painting of a bust of Marcus Aurelius surrounded by pixelated fire.	Indev 20100223
2×2 blocks 32×32 pixels	"Match"	Match	`match`	A hand holding a match, causing pixelated fire on a white cubic gas fireplace.	Indev 20100223
2×2 blocks 32×32 pixels	"Moonlight Installation"	Skull and Roses	`skull_and_roses`	Painting of a skeleton at night with red flowers in the foreground. The original painting is different, depicting a woman sitting in a couch, while the skull is in the middle of a body of glacial water of sorts.	Indev 20100223
2×2 blocks 32×32 pixels	"The stage is set"	Stage	`stage`	Painting of scenery from Space Quest I, with the character Graham from the video game series King's Quest.	Indev 20100223 / Alpha v1.1.1
2×2 blocks 32×32 pixels	"The Void"	Void	`void`	Painting of an angel praying into what appears to be a void with pixelated fire below.	Indev 20100223
2×2 blocks 32×32 pixels	–	Wither	`wither`	Painting depicting the creation of a wither. This is the only painting not based on a real painting.	Java Edition 1.4.2 (12w36a)
4×2 blocks 64×32 pixels	"Fighters"	Fighters	`fighters`	Two pixelated men poised to fight. Paper versions of fighters from the game International Karate +.	Indev 20100223
4×3 blocks 64×48 pixels	"Kong"	Donkey Kong	`donkey_kong`	A paper-looking screenshot of the level 100 m. from the arcade game Donkey Kong.	Alpha v1.1.1
4×3 blocks 64×48 pixels	"Mortal Coil"	Skeleton	`skeleton`	A painting of the “Mean Midget" from the adventure game Grim Fandango.	Alpha v1.1.1
4×4 blocks 64×64 pixels	"Skull on Fire"	Burning Skull	`burning_skull`	A Skull on pixelated fire; in the background there is a moon in a clear night sky. This painting is based on a Minecraft screenshot^[1], with the grass block and a 3D skull added on top.^[2] (See the trivia section for more info.)	Beta 1.2_01 / Beta 1.3
4×4 blocks 64×64 pixels	"RGB"	Pigscene	`pigscene`	Painting of a girl that is pointing to a pig on a canvas. In the original version, the canvas shows red, green and blue blocks, representing the three colors of the RGB color model that is typically used by computer displays.	Alpha v1.1.1
4×4 blocks 64×64 pixels	"Pointer"	Pointer	`pointer`	A painting of the main character of the game International Karate + in a fighting stance touching a large hand. It could also be interpreted as a play on Michelangelo's famous painting The Creation of Adam.	Indev 20100223

Bedrock Edition[]

In Bedrock Edition, there are four additional 2×2 tile paintings with no clear purpose or use. See Bedrock Edition unused features § Paintings for more information.

Sounds[]

Sound	Subtitles	Source	Description	Resource location	Translation key	Volume	Pitch	Attenuation distance
	Painting breaks^[3]	?	?	`entity.painting.break`	`subtitles.entity.painting.break`	?	?	16
	Painting placed	?	?	`entity.painting.place`	`subtitles.entity.painting.place`	?	?	16

Data values[]

ID[]

Java Edition:

Item	Resource location	Form	Translation key
Painting	`painting`	Item	`item.minecraft.painting`

Entity	Resource location	Translation key
Painting	`painting`	`entity.minecraft.painting`

Bedrock Edition:

Item	Resource location	Numeric ID	Form	Translation key
Painting	`painting`	`321`	Item	`item.painting.name`

Entity	Resource location	Numeric ID	Translation key
Painting	`painting`	`83`	`entity.painting.name`

Entity data[]

Paintings have entity data that defines various properties of the entity.

Java Edition:

Entity data
- Tags common to all entities
- Tags common to all hangables
- Motive: The resource location of the painting's artwork.

Bedrock Edition:

See Bedrock Edition level format/Entity format.

Video[]

History[]

Java Edition Indev

20100223 Added paintings.

There are currently 19 canvases, which can be viewed at Java Edition history of textures/Paintings.

The crafting recipe of paintings uses eight planks.

Recipe

Painting textures are currently stored on a texture atlas called kz.png.

Java Edition Infdev

20100227-1

The crafting recipe has of paintings has been changed, so that it now uses sticks, rather than planks.

Recipe

Java Edition Alpha

v1.1.1 Added five more painting canvases, for a total of 24.

The textures of two paintings have been changed.

Java Edition Beta

1.2_01 Added a new painting, although it uses an untextured part of kz.png due to the painting texture not yet being implemented.

1.3 The texture of the new painting, has been added to the part of kz.png displayed by the new painting.

April 27, 2011 Custom paintings are mentioned by Notch.

1.7.3 Paintings pushed by pistons now pop off.

Java Edition

1.4.2 12w36a Added new painting canvas 'Wither'.

Paintings can now be placed overlapping one another.

1.8 14w10a Paintings can no longer be placed directly inside of each other.

1.9 15w49a Paintings can no longer be destroyed by lightning.

15w50a Added sounds for placing and breaking paintings: entity.painting.place and entity.painting.break.

1.11 16w32a The entity ID for paintings has been changed from Painting to painting.

1.12 17w06a Paintings now have a more intuitive placement system. When placed, a painting always uses the maximum possible amount of available space.

1.13 17w47a Prior to The Flattening, this item's numeral ID was 321.

18w02a Paintings now use a resource location for their motive.

1.14 18w43a The item texture of paintings has been changed.

19w07a Paintings are now stored as individual image files instead of parts of a single large image file, and now support animations.

19w11a Shepherd villagers now sell paintings.

1.17 21w11a The painting back texture has been updated to be in line with the texture update.

Pocket Edition Alpha

v0.5.0 Added paintings.

There are currently 25 canvases, which can be viewed at Bedrock Edition history of textures/Paintings.

v0.8.0 build 3 A new painting rendering has been added.^{[more information needed]}

v0.12.1 build 1 Paintings are no longer available from the nether reactor.

v0.15.0 build 1 Paintings now have sounds when placed and broken.

Pocket Edition

1.0.7 Added new painting canvas 'Wither'.

Bedrock Edition

1.10.0 beta 1.10.0.3 The item texture of paintings has been changed.

1.11.0 beta 1.11.0.4 Paintings can now be bought from shepherd villagers.

1.17.0 beta 1.17.0.50 The painting back texture has been updated to be in line with the texture update.

Legacy Console Edition

TU1 CU1 1.0 Patch 1 1.0.1 Added paintings.

There are currently 25 canvases, which can be viewed at Legacy Console Edition history of textures/Paintings.

TU11 The limit for paintings in a world has been increased.

A message is now displayed when the maximum paintings are reached.

TU14 1.04 Added new painting canvas 'Wither'.

TU43 CU33 1.36 Patch 13 Added sounds for paintings.

1.90 The item texture of paintings has been changed.

New Nintendo 3DS Edition

0.1.0 Added paintings.

There are currently 25 canvases, which can be viewed at New Nintendo 3DS Edition history of textures/Paintings.

Issues[]

Issues relating to "Painting" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.

Trivia[]

On April 26, 2011, Notch stated that the automapping code can be used to share custom paintings and books in the future.^[4]
If a player is standing behind a painting, other players do not see their name.
Paintings are not actually attached to the wall. When looked at closely, there is a visible gap between the painting and the wall.
The texture on the back of a painting is the same as the wooden planks texture, but with a yellowish color similar to that of chests but slightly darker.
Because paintings can be passed through and can be placed on blocks that can also be passed through, players often use paintings to create secret doorways.
The "Skull on Fire" painting contains a Minecraft world in the background, which is based on a screenshot taken by the artist in Alpha 1.1.2_01 (or earlier) on October 12, 2010, at 13:22:49 (UTC+2).^[5]
- The seeds for this world are -1044887956651363087 and -6984854390176336655 (both are the same), standing at X=-249.65, Y=91, Z=-29.04.^[6]^[7]
The "Skull on Fire" painting's texture was added in Beta 1.3. However, the code for paintings to randomly display the part of the Kz.png texture that was to be occupied by the Burning Skull painting was added earlier, in Beta 1.2_01. As there was nothing on this part of the texture except for a purple background grid, this is what would be displayed if the painting was randomly chosen, until the Burning Skull painting texture was actually added.

Gallery[]

The first image of paintings released by Notch.
The original screenshot behind the "Skull on Fire" painting.
A render of the Burning skull painting that Kristoffer Zetterstrand used as a reference image.
The original "Skull on Fire" painting being painted.
The "Burning Skull" painting as it appeared between versions Beta 1.2_01 and Beta 1.2_02, prior to its texture being added in Beta 1.3.

References[]

Items

Entities

[1] ttps://imgur.com/HVhrbnH

[2] ttps://imgur.com/AwqQFS6

[3] MC-194948

[4] ttps://twitter.com/notch/status/62970142207913984

[5] "The original (never publicly shared before) screenshot that Kristoffer Zetterstrand took and based his painting on." – Imgur.

[6] ttps://pastebin.com/fzAY9ES4

[7] ttps://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/iqg3ey/the_original_screenshot_seed_of_the_minecraft/

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