Sara E. Thomas
Objectives:
Students will be able to describe a painting without interpreting it.
Students will be able to analyze a painting using the elements and principles of design.
Students will be able to create an interpretation of the artwork and support that
interpretation with specific information from the artwork.
Materials:
Malevich's The Knife Grinder at the Yale Art Gallery.
Paper and a pencil
Procedure:
1. Students will do a thumbnail sketch of the painting. This is a quick, rough sketch, just to get the basic idea of the painting. It gets them looking at details and looking past simply what they "think" it is.
2. Students will be asked to describe what they see. What shapes, what colors, what specific objects can they make out?
3. Next once students have a description they will need to analyze how the artist has used elements and principles of design. They should be able to talk about repetition of shapes, flat shapes versus shapes with volume, colors in the same color family, etc.
4. Students will need to explain what they think the artist wanted to get across to the viewer and why, using support from the artwork. When I first start this exercise with students I often set up the sentence for them, "I think…because I see…in the artwork."
5. I will give students some background information on the artist, the movement of futurism and the subject of the painting.
