I agree, black works well for an art site. I tried black, white (which was interesting when combined with semi-transparent .PNG's... scrolling a page tended to "fade away" up or down), and a type of blue that made any image seem to float. But now I'm trying for some background with a pattern, but not happy with any pattern I try. Reason is I like semi-transparent .PNG's and the effects one can achieve with them. I love a glass effect and in the past have done floating glass planes for images/text. Now I'm going more simple (because lack of time) and the best way to highlight the semi-transparent .PNG's is to have a patterned background. Else the transparent part gets lost in an solid background.