Deborah L. Boughton
Students miss much of the richness of visual and verbal texts if they don't recognize the context within which the artist creates. Additionally, considering the cultural assumptions that the artist or author may have relied on will help students read more critically. Many of my students have a limited conscious awareness of how culture shapes one's thinking. They have received powerful messages about themselves and about their place in the world that are rooted in history, culture and myth. While many of the messages are positive and useful, some are not. It is essential that students begin to see the messages about issues like, gender, race and social class that are communicated in subtle (and not so subtle) ways by everything from fairytales to commercials for acne cream. These messages begin to shape the lens through which we see the world; they become our frames of reference. Students need to recognize their own bias and need to begin to identify biases that are embedded in visual and print texts.
In this section of the unit, students will practice making close observations and inferences about pieces of art from the mid 1800's. While students may be unfamiliar with the historical contexts of these pieces, they should be able to deduce something about the society from which the art came. As they make observations using VTS, students will make inferences about why the paintings were created, who the intended audience was and what social and cultural beliefs might be reflected in the composition. After completing this task, students will read a short piece of related fiction and identify the cultural assumptions that shape the way the main character sees the world. Finally, students will take on the role of the artist and attempt to convey their own point of view about the community of New Haven.
All of the paintings featured in this section are available on the Yale Center for British Art's website as a part of the curriculum guide Be A Part of History: Slavery and Abolition in Words and Pictures.
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The first two lithographs featured are landscapes of the same place: the Montpelier Estate in St. James, Jamaica. During the 1800's this estate was one of the largest and most profitable sugar cane plantations in the Caribbean and it depended upon slave labor for its production. Although the lithographs are similar in style and share the same point of view physically, they are very different. The first was created in 1820-21 on commission for the plantation owner. The second was made in 1833 as a chronicle of the Christmas Rebellion which was a particularly violent slave revolt. Hopefully, students will recognize that each artist is presenting a very different view of Montpelier. The bucolic scene depicted in the first image completely leaves out any evidence of slavery. There are no slave quarters included in the commissioned rendition of Montpelier. If it weren't for the two palm trees pictured, the painting looks almost identical to the many lush peaceful landscapes of British country estates that were in fashion during this time period and commissioned by England's most wealthy families. Although the rendering of the Christmas Rebellion is presented at what might have been considered a tasteful distance, it captures the chaos and violence of the times.
The second pair of illustrations on the website, Images at Work: Cries of Kingston, Cries of London, also has common elements. "Milk Woman" and "Milk Below" both feature female laborers, one Jamaican and the other English. Students will notice the obvious differences in setting as well as the differences in the women's clothing style and posture. Undoubtedly, they will question the credibility of the images. They are likely to point out that the dainty well dressed Englishwoman could not possibly carry such large containers of milk, and that the Jamaican woman would probably not effortlessly balance the burden on her head. I will then give students the titles of the sources from which the drawings were excerpted, The Itinerant Traders of London in their Ordinary Costume and Sketches of Character: In Illustration of the Habits, Occupation and Costume of the Negro Population. I will then ask students what they imagine the artist's purpose was in each case. Next, I will ask students to identify the messages that each illustration is communicating about the subject's class, gender and race. As students make inferences I'll continually remind them to refer to the details in the print that have prompted them to make their claims and to articulate their line of reasoning. Next, I will ask students to imagine what the real lives of "milk women" at this time in history might be. The conditions for both itinerant laborers in London and slaves on sugar plantations in the Caribbean were quite harsh. In these cases art did not mirror life.
I will give them some historical background about the artists who produced the prints. Jewish Jamaican artist Isaac Mendes Belisario created a series of lithographs in Sketches of Character that document the music and dance festival of Jonkonnu which was a traditional holiday for the slaves of the Caribbean. Students should also recognize that when I ask them to infer what the artist is communicating, I understand that their response is a theory. Belisario's viewpoint about slavery is bound to be ambiguous as his stance in real life was full of contradictions. Although Belisario's family profited greatly from the slave trade, Belisario documents the colorful folk traditions of the slaves with great care. The woman pictured in "Milk Woman" could have raised Belisario as his nanny.
The Social and Cultural Context of "Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid
The contemporary short story "Girl" is an interesting verbal text for students to read after viewing this series of images from Art & Emancipation in Jamaica: Isaac Mendes Belisario and His Worlds. The author, Jamaica Kincaid, spent her childhood on the island of Antigua in the West Indies, which at the time was still a British colony. Kincaid, the descendent of Caribbean slaves, experienced firsthand the discrimination and oppression that were the legacy of slavery. Much of her work deals with her anger toward the British colonizers of Antigua. In her essay A Small Place she addresses the colonizers directly: "Have you ever wondered to yourself why it is that all people like me seem to have learned from you is how to imprison and murder each other, how to govern badly, and how to take the wealth of our country and place it in Swiss bank accounts."
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Later in this piece, Kincaid confronts the people of Antigua. She suggests that they have become complicit in their own oppression by not freeing themselves from foreign control and culture. "Girl" is a piece of imaginative literature that addresses these issues in a more indirect way that is embedded in the narrative.
The story is essentially a monologue, a mother's list of directives to her daughter written as a single sentence. Kincaid allows Girl's voice to break through the mother's diatribe only twice. The reader learns how much the mother's life has been dictated by the oppression she has experienced as an Afro-Caribbean woman living in the West Indies. Many critics have read the mother's monologue as a sort of indoctrination to the oppressive and sexist power structure in Antigua. For example the story references "benna," a form of calypso music that has been traced back to Caribbean slaves. The mother warns "Girl" that she must "not sing benna in Sunday School." As students examine the mother's admonishment they will notice that Christianity, brought to the Island by the English, is valued over the native traditions.
Later the mother's warning becomes harsher. She implies that the daughter may hang out with "wharf-rat boys" and openly asserts that the girl is "bent on becoming" a slut. The mother seems to be passing on the fear and shame that have been part of her own experience as a woman. She seems to be resigned to the fact that Girl lives in a world where she will be defined not only by her ability to perform domestic duties, but also by her ability to hide her sexuality. Along with her more mundane advice about household chores and cooking, the mother tells her "how to make a good medicine to throw away a child before it becomes a child…how to bully a man and how a man bullies you." Ultimately the mother seems to imply that Girl is responsible for her own oppression. When Girl manages to weakly ask the mother a question, "but what if the baker won't let me feel the bread?" the mother replies, "you mean to say that after all you are really going to be the kind of woman who the baker won't let near the bread." Certainly this piece will be evocative for students.
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Classroom Strategies: Bringing Students into the Conversation about "Girl"
Before reading the story I might ask students to collect images of girls and boys, women and men taken from popular magazines and newspapers. Students can work in groups to construct separate collages of male and female images. Each group will then analyze and compare the collages. Together they can determine what these media images reveal about the assumptions that the culture makes about gender. After each group shares their findings, students can journal briefly about any advice they can remember receiving from parents or other influential adults about what it means to be a man or a woman.
Because this story is so short, it can be read in a single class period and students can respond with the full text in front of them. The VTS prompts can guide the conversation. Students can begin by making initial inferences about the setting of the story and the characters. They should be able to identify the clues in the text that reveal the relationships, values, ages, occupations and social status of these characters. Students could also consider what the "rules" are for relationships between men and women in this world. What kind of power can a woman have?
Finally, students should be prompted to consider questions about the author's craft. After giving them a brief biography of Jamaica Kincaid, I would ask them to generate questions about her intentions, beginning with the phrase: I wonder why the author chose to…? Students might consider why Kincaid ended the story the way she did, or why she chose to have the mother speak in one, long continuous sentence.
A View of New Haven in Context
At the end of this segment, students will apply what they have learned about social and cultural context by creating an image of their own community that communicates their perspective. I will show students two images of New Haven that were produced at about the same time: John Warner Barber's Eastern View of New Haven Green, 1840 and George Henry Durrie, View of West Rock, 1857.
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These are iconic images of New Haven and should be familiar to students as key features of the landscape like the Centre Church on the green and West Rock have not changed significantly in 150 years. As per the VTS protocol I will ask students to describe what is going on within each of these frames and what in the visual text makes them infer what they do. These two images depict very well-known areas in New Haven. Have students see if they can identify the locations without reading the information at the bottom of the print. Next invite students, to compare these views with the community today. How are they similar? Different? Have students determine what features make the places recognizable. If students are not familiar with the New Haven Green or Westville they can look up an image on the Internet. Have students chart the physical elements of the locations depicted that have changed and the elements that have stayed the same.
Next invite students to look for clues as to what life was like in the mid 1800's. Both of these pieces were created during the same time period as the prints from of Montpelier. Ask students to consider who is included in Barber's picture and who might be missing. Give students a brief introduction to George Henry Durrie. He lived most of his life in New Haven and earned a reputation for rural landscape scenes, especially snow scenes, which he introduced as subject matter in American painting. Critics believe that his landscape paintings provide an excellent record of rural life in the mid-nineteenth century because he carefully recorded details of nature and foliage.
After students spend time thinking-aloud about the piece I will ask them to reflect in writing about the images. I will ask them to 1) make a claim about what they imagine the artists' intentions were 2) describe what concrete details in the image caused them to make that claim and then 3) write some commentary explaining their line of reasoning. Writing should help them to internalize the critical thinking process they have been practicing and expand on their thoughts.
After students speculate about the two images, I will ask them to create their own sketch of either West Rock or the New Haven green. I will tell them to keep some concrete elements of the landscape the same, so that the place is recognizable, but encourage them to present their own vision of New Haven. We will discuss the strategies that artists and photographers use to convey a sense of place.
In order to prepare for the assignment I will have them view a selection of paintings and photographs that depict place. Seeing and Writing 3, an anthology of visual and verbal texts, edited by Christine and Donald McQuade, is a rich source of images. Chapter 2 which is entitled "Coming to Terms with Place" contains several paintings and photographs along with contextual background for the work. In many cases, the artist or photographer comments directly about the pieces that are presented.
Particular works that might give students ideas about how to use visual metaphor, color, tone, irony and other elements of composition to communicate their stance about New Haven include:
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Richard Misrach's photographs of the Golden Gate Bridge (2001): students can consider how the photographer shot the photographs from the same viewpoint (his front porch) but creates very different compositions by capturing varying weather conditions and different times of day. Additionally, students can consider how Misrach uses the bridge metaphorically.
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Mark Peterson's photograph, Image of Homelessness from his series from his Across the Street series, captures the divide between rich and poor living along 5
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Avenue in New York City. By juxtaposing images of poverty with images of wealth, he draws the audience's attention to the socioeconomic inequality so prevalent in many cities.
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Joel Sternfeld's photos, particularly those presented in On this Site: Landscape in Memoriam capture ordinary sites where extraordinary events have occurred. These photographs are all paired with captions which describe significant events which have happened in that place. Sternfeld's work is highly ironic. For example, one photo shows a bus shelter across from the Department of Housing and Urban Development in Washington D.C. This is the site where a homeless woman, who had been turned away from a homeless shelter the night before, froze to death. In other photographs in the series, Sternfeld comments on other larger social issues including the land rights of Native Americans, pollution and racial violence.
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Kerry James Marshall's painting Watts 1963 depicts the housing project in South Central Los Angeles where he grew up. The painting, which is done in a folk-art style, captures the innocence of childhood but also comments on the social issues that led up to the riots in Watts in 1965. The companion web-site for the text Seeing and Writing 3, seeingandwriting.com, contains an interactive exercise which offers background information and suggestions for reading this painting.
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Along with their renderings of West Rock or the New Haven Green, students should compose a verbal statement describing the claim that they are attempting to communicate through their piece. This should be a brief outline of the story they are telling about New Haven. For example, a claim about Peterson's piece might be: On Fifth Avenue in New York, great poverty and great wealth exist side by side. It's been this way so long that no one seems to notice anymore. Students should not refer to specific details from the piece but rather describe the story that is implicit in the image.
During a gallery walk, the art work can be hung around the classroom and students can walk about freely viewing the art. Students should be supplied with a list of the claims that each artist is making (with the artist's name removed) and work to match the image with the claim. Each student should also get a supply of post-its to write comments for the artist. It might be helpful to supply students with sentence starters: The mood of the piece is… The issue that this piece points to is…This piece reminds me of…because… Remind students to substantiate their inferences with evidence from the visual text and to include commentary in their responses.