Dark or light backgrounds?

[fredjeang]

Hi,
Why in the photographic world, the vast majority of (web) portfolios, blogs, agencies...displays pictures in grey, dark or black backgrounds,
while in painting or most other visual arts, rules clearly the white background?
Considering that a print would generally be watched on a white background in real world, (walls, newspaper...) what do you think about
this fact?

Fred.

[PeterAit]

Hi,
Why in the photographic world, the vast majority of (web) portfolios, blogs, agencies...displays pictures in grey, dark or black backgrounds,
while in painting or most other visual arts, rules clearly the white background?
Considering that a print would generally be watched on a white background in real world, (walls, newspaper...) what do you think about
this fact?

Fred.

The simple answer is that it looks better. As to why dark backgrounds look better on-screen and light backgrounds look better for prints, I expect it has to do with the fundamentally different nature of the 2 situations - emissive versus reflective.