A forest mural gives a wall depth and calm, with tree trunks that lead your eye into the picture. A jungle mural brings the leaves up close and fills the wall with warmth and movement. Choose a forest when you want a room to feel quieter and more open, and a jungle when you want it to feel lush and enclosing.
A forest leads you in, a jungle comes toward you
The difference is in the structure of the picture more than in its color. A forest is built from vertical lines with space between them. You look past the first trunks to the next ones, and the wall starts to read as depth. Peaceful Birch Woods shows this clearly. Rows of slender white birch trunks rise through green ferns, and the light filtering through the canopy pulls your eye toward the back of the grove.
A jungle is built from leaves in the foreground. Fan palms, banana leaves and tall fronds overlap and fill most of the image, so there is less distance to look into. Madagascar Foliage, Yellow by Karina Eibatova is a good example, with palms and banana leaves layered across a pale beige ground. The wall feels closer and fuller, like standing in a planted room rather than looking out at a view.
Forests are the more common choice in our orders. In 30,000 randomly selected orders from six countries, designs from our Forest category appeared four to five times as often as designs from our Jungle & Tropical category.
