We live in a fast-paced world and much of the information that we all absorb comes from visual images. Whether deciding with whom we want to socialize or for whom we want to vote, we can easily be influenced by how people market themselves or are marketed by others. The impact that a visual image makes to portray the qualities of an individual has a historical basis, as well as contemporary importance.
The overriding goals for this unit on image-making and reading portraiture are fourfold: (1) to ask students to take time and thought to carefully observe, (2) to help students make connections between historical and contemporary times, (3) to encourage an awareness of the power of visual images to influence, and (4) to add to the understanding of students, who will follow the study of image-making to create their own portraits in the art studio.
I plan to utilize this unit with two groups of students, with the Advanced Placement Studio Art class and with the Fashion class. The primary group targeted will be the AP Studio Art class, with their increased understanding in portraiture culminating in each student's creation of a self-portrait to establish her (or his) own image. The Fashion class will be targeted more informally. The course provides the opportunity for student to learn hands on technique for the creation of garments. It also includes fashion illustration. Within the fashion design and illustration portion, students discuss what clothing communicates about a person. Fashion students will have the opportunity to observe the selected portraits, and then discuss what the garments and accessories communicate.
Two powerful hooks to foster student interest in reading portraits lie in: (1) their own interest in dress and accessories, as the means to fit into the high school scene and (2) the importance of how students present themselves in order to impact how a student is "read" by peers. Three years ago, I introduced a Fashion class at the high school. Teaching it, reinforced my own awareness of the importance that each student places on establishing image, by adding a tattoo or wearing a particular hat or by dyeing hair to just the right color or having strategically placed tears in jeans. Most of the Fashion students, as well as the majority of the AP Studio Art students, have been female. Thus, for the purpose of a manageable unit of studies for the targeted high school classes, the unit will focus on portraits of women.
General information about portraiture and image-making will narrow to direct attention on four individual portraits of women from succeeding centuries, starting with one from the 18
th
century, one from the 19
th
century, one from the 20
th
century, and one from the 21
st
. This exploration of image making can then lead to further informed observation of portraiture in the 21
st
century. The students will be able to look at historical portraiture with the knowledge that the people depicted were as interested as they are in establishing image. The connections to the image making of today's portrait artists, photographers, and commercial artists will provide the hook to interest the students in the study of historical images.
The primary content of the unit will address the following four portraits of women, each depicting a single figure: portrait of Mrs. Abington by Sir Joshua Reynolds, one of Grace Rose by Frederick Sandys, an anonymous "Chorus Captain" by Walt Kuhn and another anonymous woman by Kerry James Marshall. This exploration of work can then inform the further observation of portraiture in the 21
st
century.
Any number of more contemporary figures might be observed in the classroom setting. One starting point might be the pictorial coverage of, then first lady Hillary Clinton, in the December 1998 issue of Vogue magazine. The article featured a series of photographs by famed photographer, Annie Leibovitz.
After making connections between historical and contemporary examples of image making, students will then be able to reflect on themselves and the ways in which the information gained from reading portraits might be applied to the creation of their own self-portraits.
