Activity Four

Horace Vernet's "Hunting in the Pontine Marshes", 1833, oil canvas depicts many design bases including balance, scale and emphasis. The white tree in the middle of the painting holds the most visual weight (125.) The visual weight, tree, grabs the viewers attention and holds it. The artist used asymmetrical balance by evenly distributing a visual balance on both sides of the painting ( 129.) Each side of the painting is balanced, the boat is evened out with the broken trre branch and the other trees are evenly distributed on either side. The trees are on a larger scale than the river and the boat (137) Which means that the trees are not proportioned or size related to the size of the boat, they are extremely overwhelming (137.) The artist emphasizes the size of the trees by making them larger to show how small the men in the boat really are. Although this particular painting does not use a rhythm or pattern, it is unified by the woodland that surrounds it (122.)





Martin Johnson Heade's "Cattleya Orchid and Three Brazilan Hummingbirds", 1871, oil wood aslo depicts various design bases which includes balance, emphasis and scale. In this painting the flower holds the visual weight (125.) The size and color of the flower grab the viewers attention immediaetly. Fortunately, the painting is asymmetrically balanced by the small hummungbirds and tree branches (129.) Despite the flower's large size, the artist balanced the painting by placing a lot of smaller detail, birds and tree branches. The background of this painting is subordinate, less visually interesting, ( 134) which puts an emphasis, more attention, on the flower and the hummingbirds (134.) The flower is drawn in proportion, sizes fit each other, to the hummingbirds because (137) these birds are particularly small. However, the background is painted on a smaller scale than the flower (136.) Like Vernet, Heade's painting does not have a particular rhythm or pattern but it is unified by nature (122.)