Imagine I have a beautiful living room. Huge windows looking out into a sunny garden, imported fabrics, exotic plants, antique furniture and inlaid hardwood. It's a pleasure to behold, and a wonderful place to relax. But there's one detail missing. Walking into the room, one's eye is immediately drawn to the ornate stone fireplace, but the wall above the mantle is blank.

I recognize this as a problem, and more to the point, so does everyone I invite to my house. Everyone says that the "focal point is blank", and they suggest filling it with everything from Winslow Homer to dogs playing poker. Portraiture frequently comes up, but the thought of eyes staring down from above the mantle gives me the creeps. Too Gothic, even for a room with cathedral ceilings.

So I hire a few interior designers. They suggest that I need something a bit more impressionistic or even abstract. They try some Manet, some Turner landscapes, some Rothko, and for a time these please me because there's nothing specific that I can object to. But it's a bit like flipping channels: No matter what's on the mantle, I can't shake the feeling there's something better out there. And more importantly, when anything goes on the wall, the room seems to suffer. No one notices the crown molding, the rosettes of the door frames. The space above the mantle is like a vacuum, sucking eyeballs into its grasp, and while nothing is satisfactory, a blank wall is just as bad.

So I put up a mirror. And now, it's rare than anyone suggests an alternative. But if they do, I can always ask, "what could possibly go in that spot, that is more beautiful than the room itself?"