THE problem with most of today's international art is that you can't take it home and hang it on your wall. Even if you could afford it, it's likely to be either a site-specific installation, a multi-media production or just too darn scary. Real people don't want half a pickled animal carcass in their living room, or a hunk of gnawed chocolate next to the hall door. Or do they?

God, no," shudders one photographer. "I think that the most annoying thing I saw this year was those chocolate sculptures by Janine Antoni up in IMMA. They're the last thing I'd want in my house anyway, the dog would eat them."

What people want, according to Gerald Davis of the Davis Gallery on Dublin's Capel Street is "well-crafted work by artists whose work gives them pleasure." Currently, the artist giving the most pleasure to the "common or garden punters" who patronise the Davis Gallery is Tony Klitz. Klitz keeps his prices low and many of his paintings of well-known Dublin scenes such as Trinity College and the Ha'penny bridge cost less than £200.

Across the Liffey at the Harrison Gallery on the corner of Stephen Street and George's Street, another painter without pretension is beavering away at his easel, filling a canvas a day. Gerard Byrne trained as an electrician - the home-made, high tech lighting in the gallery is proof of his electrical wizardry - but he turned to painting seven years ago. Last year the self-taught artist sold 250 oils. His full-blown, bold and light-filled pieces are mostly of three separate subjects: street scenes, floral still lifes and lively depictions of partying people. Byrne's clients range from "the very wealthy to working class people. We have a lot of first-time buyers who walk in and say that they've never been in a gallery before." Often, says Byrne, young, home-owners will buy a picture before they even have furniture. And with prices starting at £250 and going up to £3,000, it can be quite a financial commitment.

HOWEVER, most young people are more likely to dress their walls with poster from Habitat or We Frame It, where the strain on the purse is less serious. At Habitat, the gallery annex is one of the busiest departments, turning over £8,000 per week, and rising. And as some of the framed reproductions cost as little as £17, that's a lot of pictures. The most popular posters - "to the extent that we have waiting lists" - are two Turkish scenes in saturated watercolour by an artist called Macke. Also in demand at the moment is Rodin's Cambodian Dancer series.

At We Frame It, Pilar Corral knows all about trends in the poster print world: "The Impressionists are still in. They have never been out. I thought everyone by now had a Van Gogh or a Monet in their house!" she marvels. Renoir, however, is "out of the picture for the last few years

People are not interested in human figures any more, she states, unless they are indistinct, like the vague-featured, languorous ladies by Tarkay, a contemporary artist. "These are good for businesses like hairdressers, where they want images of women that aren't photographs."

Architectural prints have fallen off in popularity, says Corral, "but people's still like them for their dining rooms." Strong colours are in fashion now, she says, as are abstract works, especially for men.

"Young professional guys go for strong geometric shapes and bold colours, like this print by Scott Sandell. It's very masculine: it makes a statement in their apartment."

Office art - often bought in batches of four is either abstract or from a poster range called "Successories" : uplifting images accompanied by pithy sayings designed to motivate - or terrify uncertain executives. Thus, a photograph of a mighty, rolling wave is entitled "Change: If you're not riding the wave of change ... you'll find yourself beneath it."

But sometimes the content of the picture is the least important thing. Those who are enslaved to their home decor turn up with bits of wallpaper or curtain material and are not happy until they find a perfectly matching picture.

Not far away, at the National Gallery, fabric swatches also call the shots, "particularly on Sundays" says the shop manager, Marie FitzGerald. The Gallery's enduring best-seller is still The Goosegirl, "no matter who painted her." She can be had for just £6.95 - or for £95.90 for a framed canvas print that "looks as if you bought it at auction." Jack B. Yeats ("we sell a hell of a lot of Yeats") and Paul Henry reproductions are also perennial favourites. And earnest young buyers in their teens and twenties just can't get enough of the dark, apocalyptic Opening of the Sixth Seal by the 19th century Irish artist, Danby.

First-time buyers of original art are getting younger, believes Josephine Kelleher of the Rub icon Gallery. "In their first 10 years of work most people expect to have their car, stereo and house sorted out," she says. "So art comes onto the agenda much earlier now. In their late twenties people are buying their first paintings." When they first come into her gallery. Kelleher says, new clients look for a landscape, or "something that they've seen before in poster form. But by the second or third visit they're picking up something they wouldn't have dreamed of looking at before." This might be a pure, minimal oil on canvas by Aoife Harrington, or a vibrant screenprint by Felicity Clear: both far removed from a traditional landscape or a safe poster image. "People are definitely more visually literate and sophisticated than they were 10 or 15 years ago," says Kelleher. "They're used to seeing the best of MTV graphics, they've seen enough Chagall and Matisse, and they've seen the Turner Prize on Channel Four."

STEPHEN Lawlor, a print-maker, is a director of Artemis, a company which distributes original prints by contemporary Irish artists to galleries outside Dublin. This year the company's turnover was £250,000, substantially more than that of many Dublin galleries. "Seventy per cent of the buyers are foreign visitors. They know what an etching or a lithograph is, whereas in Ireland there are still people who don't know the difference between a reproduction and an original print." But that is changing gradually, as people become better informed, says Lawlor.

Not so with certain hoteliers outfitting their rooms though. "You have to push them hard not to go for yachts in the bay..." says Lawlor wearily. Over the years he has discovered the recipe for perfect hotel art: "It can't be art that's in your face. It can't be too bright or too black. It can't be too specific - which is not to say that it is bad art. It has to be reflective or meditative - rather than something that hammers you over the head."