Mary K. Donahue
This section will focus on analyzing individuals acting as such in society. Our goal now is to move the students into the realm where they can look at paintings of group scenes and distinguish the differences between these scenes where society is functioning as a group made of individuals, rather than the former paintings where the society has a negative effect on the individual. Here we will move our students away from just analyzing the paintings and move them into interpreting and connecting to them. It is important to begin leading the students into understanding the differences between community and society. The paintings I have chosen for this section mostly portray groups of people doing something together. In some way, mostly in their actions, or the activity that they are taking part in, they are connected. This connection, however, does not negate their individual identities, but in fact, enhances it.
My favorite painting, and the one that I believe to be most effective with the students, is
The Belated Party, Mt. Mansfield
(Jerome Thompson, 1858). This painting represents those who have wholly devoted themselves to society, and those that are interested in being individuals in their own right. The three on the bottom are inpatient with what is going on. Their dress and their demeanor shows us that they are ready to go, ready to tae on a new, more exciting activity. These figures are divided from the others by many things: mainly the rock they are leaning on. Lead your students through a discussion of the ‘objects’ in the painting. Then draw attention to the two women at the top of the screen. What are they doing? What are they interested in? After you have fully analyzed these two sections, move on to the visual pinnacle: the man at the top of the outcropping who is standing on his own. This figure is a visual embodiment of the individual. He is standing on his own, facing away from the ‘society’ below. He has essentially rejected all that is known to ponder the unknown. He is an artist, or philosopher, looking out at the mountains, contemplating. He is not checking his watch, he is not concerned with the women behind him (who may or may not be interacting with him), but he is happy acting as himself. Now ask the students to relate the readings you’ve been doing to this paintingwhat might have Thoreau said about these figures? Who aligns with Emerson’s philosophies?
The rest of the paintings I have chosen for this section are:
The Night Watch
(Rembrandt, 1642),
Experiment on a Bird with an Air Pump
(Joseph Wright, 1768), and
The Bully of the Neighborhood
(by John George Brown, 1866). All three of these are community scenes depicting individuals working together toward a cause. After interpreting the painting, it will be advantageous to have the students connect to one of the paintings. Your goal here is to facilitate understanding of community: the idea of working toward a common good. The students must begin to empathize, asking questions like: Which figure do you connect to most? Why? Which figure do you connect to least? Why? At this point, you may even want to switch up the format of the class. Save one of the paintings and don’t discuss it in the open class forum, like you have the others. Instead, give a copy of the painting to each student. Ask them to look at it and analyze as you would in class. Then have them either answer questions or do a short writing assignment on it. They can tell a story about the people: who do they seem to be? Remember, the key ideas here are that every person in that picture is an individual. As such, this painting cannot be looked at as a ‘mob scene’ might be. Rather than seeing eight figures that are all dressed alike, all shouting in a similar fashion, wearing clothes that can easily be recognized as belonging to a certain group, they are seeing eight people, acting and reacting to the situation that is before them as individuals. At this point I would probably even try to give them a picture that is similar to this ‘mob’ scenario I have put before you. A photo, maybe from a magazine, of a scene that looks like the very picture of conformity. People, maybe not acting as they want, but rather as they see fit for that time and place. By the same token, it would be interesting to show them another sort of group picture: maybe a team photo, or something that you might find in the yearbook. Now you have another whole facet of this idea to toy with. Are the people in this photo conformists or individuals? How do you know? Does your opinion change because you know these people, or because it is tradition to wear a sports uniform? Why do sports teams and employers alike expect heir members to dress the same? This will get at a lot of the themes and ideas that you want the students to be pondering, especially for their final project.