The Absence Of Color

In this painting you see a mostly mute color palette, with the fire and the background providing most of the color. Giving a sense of the dire situation these people find themselves in now, but the possibility of regrowth and hope ahead.

In this battle scene, the only bright colors you see are the white of the gun smoke and the occasional red uniform. The color choice helps give a sense of the blur and chaos of a real battle.

This is another painting that uses a mostly earth toned setting, with splashes of color used very selectively. The green highlights the dead soldiers and just a bit of blue in the background, which almost fades with the melancholy scene before it.

Another example of the sparse color showing hope. The black surrounding Christ exemplifies his pain and death, with the blue and white behind it depicting his ascension to heaven.

In this painting of a bombed out city, the color is dominated mostly in grays, blacks, and whites. The small spots of red and yellow almost make the scene bleaker, showing remnants of what was.

Again, in a scene dominated with the chaos depicted using a limited color palette, the red in the painting sticks out, showing the only bit of hope in the scene.

The green and yellow in this painting set a dim glow, personifying the poverty of the family. Casting their faces in an emotion I can only describe as acceptance. Neither happy nor sad.

In this portrait of an old man, there is a bit more color, but the blue is muted, allowing the warm yellow glow to draw to the eye to his face, showing a calm but happy expression.

The coloring in this painting is so dark that all but the tumultuous waves is shrouded in darkness, showing the intensity of the storm and the fear and helplessness that the onlookers must feel.

The contrast of the colors is stark here. The surrounding cell completely black, the only things visible are St. Peter kneeling and the keys beside him, giving a feeling of hope in a dark place.

Here the only color outside of earth tones is the green of the water and the boat, inevitably leading you to the dark figures marching onto the boats. The shadowy and indistinct figures give the feeling of drudgery and of people trapped in a daily toil without end.

Everything about this painting implies a dark and somber mood. The only real light and color in the painting is the small sliver of the moon. The trees hold no leaves and the grass no color. Even the positioning of the man, in dark robes, head down as he walks.

Here an opposite technique to many of the others in this collection is used. The vibrant color surrounding the dead Christ shows the passion and emotion of his followers in deep contrast to the grey lifeless body they carry.

Here a nighttime landscape is shown. Though most of the picture is dark, the moon lighting the painting gives a calm, peaceful feeling.

In this landscape, the whole scene is fairly pale. The bits of color give the feeling of scale that the family sitting there must feel, the blue of the bay standing out from the basic earth tones.