Minecraft wiki entry for Painting, associated text: On April 26, 2011, Notch stated that the automapping code can be used to share custom paintings and books in the future.[4]
If a player is standing behind a painting, other players do not see their name.
Paintings are not actually attached to the wall. When looked at closely, there is a visible gap between the painting and the wall.
The texture on the back of a painting is the same as the wooden planks texture, but with a yellowish color similar to that of chests but slightly darker.
Because paintings can be passed through and can be placed on blocks that can also be passed through, players often use paintings to create secret doorways.
The "Skull on Fire" painting contains a Minecraft world in the background, which is based on a screenshot taken by the artist in Alpha 1.1.2_01 (or earlier) on October 12, 2010, at 13:22:49 (UTC+2).[5]
The seeds for this world are -1044887956651363087 and -6984854390176336655 (both are the same), standing at X=-249.65, Y=91, Z=-29.04.[6][7]
The "Skull on Fire" painting's texture was added in Beta 1.3. However, the code for paintings to randomly display the part of the Kz.png texture that was to be occupied by the Burning Skull painting was added earlier, in Beta 1.2_01. As there was nothing on this part of the texture except for a purple background grid, this is what would be displayed if the painting was randomly chosen, until the Burning Skull painting texture was actually added.