Choose One of the Following Lessons

Art History: Images and Movements

COURSE LEVEL/CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LEARNERS:

This lesson is designed for 7th through 10th graders ranging in age from twelve to fifteen
Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction Standards for
Art and Design in Parentheses Following Goals/Objectives

GOALS/OBJECTIVES:

• Students will learn about the various art movements and styles
  
  • Students will recognize styles from other times (A4)
    
  • Students will recognize styles of art from other lands (A3)
    
  • Students will use art as a way of thinking and communicating (A6)
    
  • Students will explore how artists/cultures through history have used art to communicate ideas, and designs (B1)
    
  • Students will understand how their choices in art are shaped by their own culture and society (B5)
    
  • Students will understand and recognize that art reflects the history and culture in which created (I5)
  • Students will understand the purposes and functions of art (J1)
    
  • Students will understand their own ideas about the purposes and meanings of art (J5)
    
  • Students will understand and apply art criticism and aesthetic knowledge in art and design (J7)
    
  • Students will reflect and talk about works of art (J10)
    
• Students will learn the basics of computer graphics
  
  • Students will know and use elements and principals of design in sophisticated ways (C1)
    
  • Students will assume personal responsibility for learning and the creative process (C10)
    
  • Students will be able to demonstrate that they understand formal elements
    
    • line, color, rhythm, balance
      
    • vocabulary related to doing/making (A2)
      
• Students will create an art history self portrait
  
  • Students will continue to use a variety of tools, such as more sophisticated application of images, emotions, and technology to help communicate about the visual world (K4)
    
  • Students will apply problem solving strategies that promote fluency, flexibility, elaboration, and originality (D6)
    
  • Students will use the knowledge of nature and works of art as sources for new ideas (L4)
    
  • Students will understand that art is created by people with different world views, expresses diverse ideas, and changes over time (L6)
    
• Students will learn how to use digital photography to create other works
  
  • Students will apply advanced craft and skills to consistently produce quality art on the computer (C7)
    
  • Students will imagine complex situations from a variety of challenging points of view (L7)
    
• Students will learn how to use Photoshop or Photoshop Elements in order to
  
  • Crop, enhance, scale, resample and repair photographs
    
  • Use filters and effects
    
  • Create and use layering
    
• Students will learn how to use Hyperstudio and/or Powerpoint in order to create multimedia presentations
  
  • Students will communicate complex ideas by producing design art forms such as graphic design, photography, and multimedia
    
  • Students will connect prior knowledge and skills in art to other areas, such as humanities, sciences, social studies, and technology (K1)
    

  TECHNICAL SKILLS

  Formal Content:

  Looking and Talking:

  • Students recognize and understand the social, emotional, and historical context of visual culture through time and across cultures(art vocab and history, criticism [what is art, why do people make art, how do artists use art to express ideas, describing, analyzing, interpreting, and judging a work of art using Feldman's model of Art Criticism]

    Description:

    • What is it? What kind of object, artist, dates, style, media, size, obvious subject, etc.?
    • What does the object itself immediately reveal?
    • What are the visual clues that would help you identify the work?

    Formal Analysis:

    • How was it done? Technical explanations, methods, compositions

    Elements of design

    • Form, Line, Shape, Color, Texture, Space, Value

    Principles of art

    • Emphasis, Balance, Harmony, Variety, Movement,, Rhythm, Proportion, Unity

    Interpretation:

    • What does this work mean? Is there a story --literary content?
    • Symbols or visual clues. (Iconography)
    • Any emotion or feeling?--hedonic tone, aesthetic resonance?
    • Historical period or artistic style?
    • Is this work an important example to explain some cultural, social or human activity, or interest?

    Judgment:

    • Why is this work valuable? In your opinion, is the work good or bad?
    • Successful or unsuccessful as a work of art and in what terms?
    • How can you validate your opinions and judgment?
    • Compare it with another work that is similar/different to with what some other critic or historian has said about this work?) , aesthetics, media, etc.)

    Expressive:

    • Students will understand and communicate complex ideas and emotions through art creation and reflection. (visual media and technology, literacy, production) (Making connections, synthesis of various forms of knowledge through art, integrating subject areas, invention, making use of community resources) (Visual imagination and creativity, developing and articulating personal style through art work, strengthening habits of mind-imagination/creativity/metaphor, problem solving in creative ways)

    LESSON RATIONALE

    So often art history is presented in a fairly straight forward and ultimately dry way. Incorporating studio experiences with computer graphics and adding an online learning element seemed to me to be a great way to engage the chat room savvy student of today without sacrificing the hands on activities in the art room.

    Besides gaining a storehouse of art masterworks, students get to explore various art media such as colored pencil, watercolor, tempera, gouache, oil pastels, pastels, paper mache', use a wide variety of computer graphic skills, and explore the performing arts staging technique of Stage Picture.

    INTEGRATIVE ASPECTS OF THE LESSON:

  • In the area of Language Arts Comprehension, students are required to use internet resources when doing research. The students must evaluate information on the internet in the same manner as they would if researching information in texts or magazines. They are taught to treat the internet just like a text and to cite information that is directly quoted from internet sources.
    
  • In the area of Communications,/Media students use multi-media software to create computer generated presentations on specific aspects of the lesson. The software used could be either HyperStudio or PowerPoint.
    
  • In the area of History,, multimedia presentations can depict specific biographical, geographic, religious, political or historical information connected to the artists, masterworks, or cultures such as the backstory of Picasso's Guernica.
  • In the area of Performing Arts, students will use improv exercises such as stage picture to reenact and stage scenes dipicted in some famous masterworks and then take digital photos of the tableau

    MOTIVATION/INTRODUCTION:

    • I will use a Powerpoint presentation to introduce the unit as a whole, giving the full scope and sequence of activities and expectations
    • I will introduce the students to various art history web sites they will be using as resources

    ART MAKING PROCEDURES/ACTIVITIES:

    Art Supplies and Equipment List:

    (non-consumable)
    • Rulers, pencils
    • Dry media; pastels, oil pastels, colored pencils, charcoal pencils, conte' crayon
    • Wet media; watercolor, tempera, gouache
    • Brushes
    • Plastic mask bases
    • Art Paste
    • Props and still life objects for the reenactments

    Materials

    (consumable)
  • 12 pieces large white poster board (you need at least one for every two students)
  • Newspaper
  • Brown paper towel

  Computer Supplies and Equipment List:

  (non-consumable)
  • 6 or more fully equipped Mac or PC computers loaded with all software programs needed
  • 2 or more digital cameras
  • optional photo quality color printer

  Materials

  (consumable)
  • optional glossy photo quality paper

  Organization/Distribution of Equipment and Supplies:

  Demonstration Plan:

  Step-by-step directions for Initial Art Room Studio Activity:

  • Teacher will choose approximately 12 masterworks and print a color copy of each broken up with a 1" grid
  • Students will create a light 2" grid on a large white poster board
  • Students will choose media they feel would result in the best reproduction of the colors and the artist's style
  • In pairs, students will reproduce the work, one section at a time in order to carefully study the color and technique
  • Students will take great care matching color and style to the best of their ability
  • Students will then move to a different painting to experience the coloring and style of various artists
  • Students will get a chance to experience all the different media and techniques
  • Students will share in the collaborative work process
  • Students will begin to immerse themselves in these chosen images
  • Students will have to look up at least two different works and artists on the internet and bring back information as directed by the teacher, such as the artist's formal training, or country of origin

    Samples shown were done by 6th - 8th Graders.
    More samples are available on a CD I have created.
    You can e-mail me if you are interested in the CD.

  Step-by-step directions for Art History Self Portrait Computer Lab Activity:

  • Teacher will show Powerpoint presentation showing the Art History Self Portrait (same as Pop Culture Self Portrait)
  • Teacher will review basics of Photoshop Tools and Skills
  • Teacher will demo step by step all procedures needed to do Art History Self Portrait
  • Students will take full body digital photos of each other in an active pose that shows their personality
  • Students will use the magic wand tool to remove themselves from the background (try for a plain background to make this easier)
  • Students will have a cutout of themselves on a pure white background (like a paper doll figure)
  • Students will inversely select the white outline to act as a cookie cutter and save as a separate file
    
    
  • Students will inversely select the white outline to act as a cookie cutter and save as a separate file
  • Students will choose masterworks to which they feel connected in some way and sandwich them between the cookie cutter layers
  • Students will flatten and inversely select the cutout masterwork and paste it into their cutout doll portrait
    
    
    

    Samples shown were from a Pop Culture Self Portrait Assignment with the same procedure.

  Step-by-step directions for Art History Self Portrait Computer Lab Activity:

  
  
  • Teacher will set up an online course using Blackboard
    
  • Teacher will create External Links to Art History related web sites
  • Teacher will create a WORD template for the Art Movement Definition Word Map
  • Teacher will assign an art movement to each student in the class
  • Students will learn to login and navigate around the Blackboard environment
  • Students will go to Course Documents and download the Definition.doc to their folders on the server
  • Students will conduct research in order to generate their own paraphrased definition of the art movement with examples
  • Students will fill in their Definition.doc and then post their finished definition on the Blackboard Discussion Board
  • Students will be allowed to use the chat room feature to converse only about the work
  • Students will create a Powerpoint slide making the definition into a visual display
  • Students will design a heading for their slide in Photoshop Elements using an appropriate font, layer style, and effect
  • Students will attach their finished slide to a post on Blackboard
  • Students will create a second slide comparing and contrasting their movement to another (teacher suggested)
    
    
  • Students will post that to Blackboard also in the form of an attachment
  • Teacher will assign points on a 10 point scale for all work
  • Teacher will discuss different types of questions for literal comprehension, interpretation, and application
  • Students will generate three of each type of question based on their slides

  Step-by-step directions for Performing Arts Activity:

  • Teacher will give instructions for the improv exercise called Stage Picture
  • Students will be put into small groups and will practice this exercise with teacher direction
  • Each group will be assigned a masterwork with several human figures as subject matter
  • Groups will partner so that one group acts as the director/set designer/propmaster for the other group
  • Students will collaborate to recreate their own interpretation of the painting with found props and objects
  • Students will then document these tableaus by taking digital photos and presenting them to the whole class
  

  Photos are from my production of Godspell in which I used this technique to stage the Stations of the Cross.
  I haven't gotten a chance to stage masterworks...yet.

  Step-by-step directions for Final Art Room Studio Activity:

  • Teacher will show examples of paper mache' masks from other classes Click here for Mask website
  • Students will paper mache' at least 6 layers onto a plastic mask form
  • Students will exhibit craftsmanship in applying the layers
  • Students will choose one masterwork whose style or coloring they wish to incorporate into their mask design
  • Students will then paint their finished masks to reflect that style or coloring
  • Students will justify their choice and connect the artist's style to their own personal style
  • Students will share in discussion the art history process
  • Students will understand that these images have now become part of their visual vocabulary

    Complete Powerpoint Presentations showing step by step instructions and many more samples are available on a CD I have created.
    You can e-mail me if you are interested in the CD.

    Art Education Area; Department of Visual Art; Peck School of the Arts; University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
    Noreen Strehlow - Copyright December 2003