Breakdown of Das Meisterwerk wurde vom Künstler gemalt.
malen
to paint
vom
from the (von + dem) / of the (belonging to) / by the (agent in a passive clause)
der
who, which, that (relative pronoun; die, das)
werden
to be (passive auxiliary + past participle)
das Meisterwerk
the masterpiece
der Künstler
the artist
Questions & Answers about Das Meisterwerk wurde vom Künstler gemalt.
Why does this sentence use vom Künstler instead of durch den Künstler?
We use von to show who deliberately performed the action. Because the artist is a person actively creating the masterpiece, we use von. You would use durch for a means, tool, or cause, like durch einen Sturm (by a storm).
Why does the sentence use wurde ... gemalt instead of war ... gemalt?
wurde is the simple past tense of werden. German uses werden to build the action passive, which describes the actual event of the painting being created. If you used war (from sein), it would form the state passive, describing the finished condition of the painting rather than the action of the artist painting it.
What exactly is vom short for here?
vom is the contraction of von and dem. The preposition von always forces the following noun into the dative case. Because Künstler is a masculine noun (der Künstler), its dative article is dem.
How would this sentence look in the perfect tense (Perfekt) instead of the simple past (Präteritum)?
It would be: Das Meisterwerk ist vom Künstler gemalt worden. To form the perfect passive, you use the helping verb sein (here, ist), the past participle gemalt, and add the special passive word worden at the very end.
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