Staffage


 Staffage

Staffage   ​[stafaʒ] is the term used in art for figures in a painting or photograph that are not the primary subject of the picture.  The silhouetted figures in my photograph, Sunset at Lido Key, are important elements of the total composition but not its focus. 
 

 

The crowd in Isabel Bishop's Dante and Virgil in Union Square,  a favorite of mine at the Delaware Art Museum, is similarly a use of staffage.
 

Here are staffage examples from some of my paintings...





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