All Minecraft 1.21 paintings and how to get them

Minecraft 1.21, also known as Tricky Trials, brings a lot of fun new content to the game. This includes trial chambers, ominous events, trial spawners, vault blocks, the mace weapon, mace enchantments, and ominous bottles. With 15 new paintings set to be added as part of the title's 15th anniversary, the total is up to 20 in the update.

Detailed below is every one of the 20 paintings currently confirmed to be coming with Minecraft Tricky Trials, who the pieces are by, and some tips for getting them.

All new Minecraft Tricky Trials paintings and tips for getting them

Small paintings

The four smallest paintings being added with Tricky Trials (Image via Mojang)

There are four smaller paintings coming with Minecraft Tricky Trials. They were all made by the talented artist Sarah Boeving.

The first of these is Meditative, a 1x1 block take on Dali's Meditative Rose, but with a stem added to reference the removed rose. The second is Prairie Ride, a 1x2 block spin on Remington's The Cowboy, featuring Noor riding a horse.

The other paintings are both 2x2 in size. The first is Baroque, which contains a decorated pot from Minecraft archeology, sunflower, and cake on a dark background, based on the Baroque style.

The final of the four small paintings is Humble, which is a version of Grant Wood's American Gothic featuring villagers in front of a village, one of Minecraft's many structures.

3x3 paintings

Starting from here, every painting except for one mentioned later was created by Kristoffer Zetterstrand. For those unaware, this is the same artist who did the original 25 Minecraft paintings 15 years ago. There are eight new 3x3 paintings being added to the game in total.

The first of them is Endboss, which seems to depict a room filled with statues and a checkerboard floor. The next is Tides, which features a person sitting by the shoreline, curled into the fetal position. The third of these 3x3 paintings is Fern, which depicts a potted plant on a table next to a piece of paper and a pixelated fire.

Sunflowers is the next painting, showcasing a realistic sunflower, a cartoony sunflower, and then even more renders of sunflowers as the background. The fifth painting is Cavebird, which depicts a bird and a seaside cliff. After this is Bouquet, which features a bouquet of flowers on a ledge in front of a larger painting. Owlemons is the next painting and features an owl in a box next to lemons.

The final of the 3x3 paintings is Cotan, which contains a glistening melon and a useful Minecraft golden apple. The golden apple is suspended by a string, while the glistening melon, useful for making some potions, rests on the window sill.

4x2 paintings

After the 3x3s come the 4x2s. There are significantly fewer of these paintings coming with 1.21 Tricky Trials; only four as of Bedrock Preview 1.21.0.24. These include Passage, which features a strange hallway with a posed human skeleton and a large animal skeleton in front of a beach. Next is Changing, which literally shows night turning to day, with a hard line separating the two.

Finding is the next painting. It depicts a person crouched low in front of a structure of some kind. They seem to be scanning the ground, as if looking for a lost item, a sight familiar to any player who has failed to keep Minecraft loot safe.

The final 4x2 painting is Lowmist, which features a strange, clipped view of a floating mountain range. Floating terrain like this is almost unheard of now due to changes in terrain generation and ore distribution over the years, so seeing it live on in a painting is nice.

3x4 paintings

3x4 is an odd shape, but these paintings are worth making room for (Image via Mojang)

There are two 3x4 paintings being added to the game. The first is Backyard. This painting is of a back alley behind a building. There's a robed figure in the alley on the right-hand side of the image, with a doorway taking up the left.

The other 3x4 painting is Pond. This painting depicts a woman knee-deep in the titular pond. Next to her is a skeleton facing the camera, though the skeleton is submerged in water up to nearly its neck. This must mean it's not one of Minecraft's many hostile mob skeletons, as it seems to be passive.

4x4 paintings

These two new large paintings have very different feels to them (Image via Mojang)

There are also two new 4x4 paintings coming with Minecraft Bedrock 1.21.0.24. The first is Unpacked by the previously mentioned Sarah Boeving. This painting is actually a reference to the game's community, being a take on the iconic pack.png. It used to be the image for the default texture pack before being replaced by the current grass block.

The other 4x4 painting added is Orb, which depicts a glowing yellow orb against an eerie, dark background. It's hard to make out concrete details in this piece, adding to the mysterious vibe of the piece.

How to get a particular painting in Minecraft

Getting a particular painting in Minecraft can be annoying. There's no way to actually pick the painting you want. Instead, each time a painting is placed on a surface, the image is randomly selected. However, there are a few things that can make getting one easier.

1) Learn where to place paintings

Placing a painting on the right block should stop smaller painting from appearing (Image via Mojang)

Different-sized paintings will appear depending on where you attempt to place them in relation to other gaps and paintings. The game attempts to place the largest painting it can in a particular space.

Here is a table of painting sizes and where the player should place a painting in relation to its area.

Painting Size	Placement Spot
1x1	N/A
1x2	Bottom block
2x1	Left block
2x2	Bottom left block
3x3	Center block
3x4	Center block of second row from bottom
4x2	Bottom block of second column from left
4x3	Second row, second column block
4x4	Second row from bottom, second column

2) Box off extra space

An example of guide blocks being used to place a 3x3 painting (Image via Mojang)

Outside of knowing where to place a painting to help encourage a certain size to spawn, there's one more way to try and fix which one spawns. Placing blocks on the edge of where a painting will go will force the game to restrict it to a certain size. Essentially, if a 3x3 painting is needed, place a few framing blocks so that a 3x3 will spawn, but anything larger wouldn't fit.

This will guarantee that a 3x3 spawns, assuming it is placed on the right block. This reduces much of the RNG and should help expedite the painting picking process.

3) Try, try again

At this point, getting the right painting is a matter of patience, so don't give up (Image via Mojang)

Unfortunately, those are the best two pieces of advice for getting a particular painting. From here on out, it's a matter of RNG getting any painting of a certain size.

Simply place and break the painting repeatedly until the desired design appears. This can make getting the right painting for a Minecraft survival base a slog, but eventually, the right one will appear.