Again we have fairly passive sky and mountains (they’re a bit more active than Durand’s) but this time they act as a resting place for the rest of the painting. Now look at Field of Flowers by Frank Gardner. Notice how passive the sky and mountains are, and how he’s created an active foreground of trees and rocks to pull us toward those passive regions. An artist might choose to introduce active areas to the canvas just to tease the eye and increase interest in the more passive areas.Ī good example is Asher B. However, many artists blend the two expressions into a single work.įor example, any particularly quiet and peaceful scene will be inherently passive already. In the first two paintings above, each piece was either entirely active or entirely passive, and both were still be readable and pleasing. Smoother textures, more neutral colors and closer value relationships express passive areas.
The answer is probably what you’d expect: bold textures, vivid colors and strong contrasts describe active areas. What elements make a painting “active” or “passive”? Figlinski’s painting is a passive expression rather than an active one. The whole painting is an active expression.īy contrast, Martin Figlinski’s Judson Daniel contains blended strokes of subdued colors, helping us to perceive a more serene story about the water. The result? We perceive a lot of activity, as he intended. In Colin Page’s painting, Windy Water, he uses short, choppy brush strokes of warmer, lighter colors over very cool colors. To help illustrate this concept, look at the two paintings below and notice the way that each artist handles a body of water. As artists, creating visually “active” or “passive” paintings determine how the viewer will perceive it, and what their response will be. When we view a painting, it’s our perception of the work either makes us want to linger or walk away. but HOW that action is reported greatly influences our perception of the event. In the second sentence “I” is passive and receives the action.Įither way the same action occurs. Active voice would sound something like this: “I ate the apple.” Passive voice states it differently: “The apple was eaten by me.” In the first sentence, “I” (the subject) is active. Linguists will tell you that there are two ways of speaking-either in active or passive voice. Today, though, I want to look at another parallel-that of art and verbal communication. we’ve seen similarities between the visual rhythm of an oil painting and the choreography of dance, and in the way that both artists and musicians compose variations on a theme or use counterpoint to increase interest. By Dianne Mize in Art Tutorials > Painting Tutorials