Melody S. Gallagher
The Process of Art Criticism
Within each lesson, students will learn how to use the process of art criticism to interpret artworks. The process of art criticism involves four steps: description, analysis, interpretation, and judgment. I find that students are always eager to give their interpretations of artworks. They sometimes struggle, however, with backing their interpretations with information based on their analysis of an artwork. The purpose of this process is to guide students gradually in formulating a critical opinion. The process for art criticism will first be used with students as an oral response when introducing them to the artists as well as an assessment form in analyzing their own artwork in written responses.
Description
The first step in art criticism is to describe what you see. This can be harder than it seems. Sometimes students jump to giving their opinions of what is happening in the artwork, which is not the intent of this step. The description of the artwork should be limited to describing the depicted characters in terms of what they look like and the media used to create the artwork. A good way to approach this with students is to ask them to describe the work as if they were describing it to a blind person who cannot see the visual elements of what they are looking at.
Analysis
The second step of art criticism involves an analysis of the artwork. It is during this step that the particular art elements and principles of design, as they apply to the artwork, are discussed. The elements of art are: line, shape, color, form, texture, and space. The principles of design are: repetition, emphasis, contrast, balance, and unity. In describing this step to students, I tell them that this is the step that they will use the most "vocabulary" words. During this step they are describing the artwork and the composition in formal terms. I will ask students: "What art elements or principles of design did the artist use in creating his or her artwork?"
Interpretation
Students will then interpret what the artist is trying to say about the characters in their artwork. It is here that they will provide an opinion that is based on their description and analysis of the artwork. I will ask the question: " Based on the medium that was used and how the character was depicted, what do you think the artist is trying to say about these characters?"
Judgment
The last step in art criticism is to make a judgment. I explain to students that making a judgment is like being a critic of the artwork. A critic- whether it is a literary critic, film critic, or an art critic- is someone whose opinion on a topic we most want to hear. The job of the art critic is to judge an artwork in a critical manner, that is to say, to base their judgments on the critical analysis and interpretations of artworks. In order for students to make a critical judgment they must answer the question: "Based on how you interpret what the artist was trying to say and how they said it (through the description and analysis you gave) do you think the artist was successful?"
The Process of Character Analysis
During the second part of the process for each lesson, each student will begin to develop a character to be depicted in his or her artwork. I will have students complete a written character analysis sheet to guide them in the development of their characters. Although characters may be analyzed in many ways, for the purpose of this unit character analysis will focus on four attributes: physical, intellectual, emotional, and social. These attributes and the use of them in teaching character development will vary based on the particular lesson.
Physical
Students will be asked to describe the physical attributes of their character. This step is similar to the "describe" step of art criticism. They are only to describe what they see. Some questions for students to consider are: Is your character male or female? What does the character look like? How old is the character? What is he or she wearing?
Intellectual
Students should consider what their character is thinking and why. Sometimes an artist will add clues in a work of art to help the viewer infer what the character may be thinking about or what type of person he or she is. Students should begin to consider how they will add "clues" and what props they may include.
Emotional
Students will also infer how the character is feeling. This step of inference is similar to the interpretation step of art criticism. Students should answer the question, "How does the character feel about what they are thinking?" Students should begin to think about facial expressions and other nonverbal clues that help tell a viewer how the character feels. Students should consider: What "face" is the character making? How does the body pose help tell you how the character is feeling?
Social
Another aspect of character analysis is to consider how the character would socially interact with others. Students should consider if their character is mean, sneaky, shy, popular, or any other social attributes that the character may display.
The Artists
There are three artists that I will incorporate into the unit. Each lesson will focus on the work of one artist while developing students' ability to analyze art. The artists I chose to include are all contemporary artists. I enjoy using contemporary artists as examples because they create art for today's viewer in response to the world in which we live. We, as teachers, hear a lot about "relating concepts to the students' world". By using contemporary artists, teachers allow for students to respond to art that is a reflection of our society and world as a whole. The artists I chose to focus the three lessons on are: Hanoch Piven, Kara Walker, and Cindy Sherman. These three artists act as a strategy in teaching about creating and analyzing characters because they all depict characters in their artworks. The lessons will include having students create a self-portrait (assemblage collage lesson), a portrait of a peer (silhouette lesson), and a character portrait (photography lesson). These lessons will expose students to three distinct different ways to approach character development in their artworks.
Hanoch Piven is a contemporary children's book author and illustrator that I will use as the basis for a lesson on creating a self-portrait for the first lesson. He an international artist (like many of my students), who originates from Israel, went to college in New York City, and now resides in Barcelona, Spain. He also incorporates literacy techniques (similes and metaphors) in his creation of his assemblage character portraits. Piven has a unique style of creating character portraits. Instead of simply drawing a character he creates an assemblage collage that is made with objects that help describe the character itself. In one of his books, he uses the technique of creating simile sentences to describe the character. I will use this strategy to guide students to learn how similes can be used as a basis for describing their own characters. I will use three of his books, all which incorporate characters created through assemblage collage for this lesson.
Kara Walker and her silhouette paper cutouts will be the basis for the second lesson. Kara Walker is a young African-American artist who is able to evoke an emotional response through her highly expressive artwork. Interestingly, though, she uses just one color, black, and with this simplistic design strategy she is able to depict distinct characters in her highly graphic artwork. In addition, her work is often based on literature and references historical accounts. Students will learn how graphic artists today have employed the silhouette technique to describe characters, as in the now famous ipod ads. They will also be read children's books that use silhouette illustration to describe the characters in the books. In this lesson, students will interview one another to gather "historical information" from a classmate and write character descriptions. They will work in pairs to create life-size silhouette cutouts that depict a classmate's character through body movement and gesture.
For the final lesson, students will learn how to create a fictitious character. They will build upon what they have learned in the two previous lessons about depicting and analyzing characters to create characters that are based upon themselves and that also incorporate imaginary characteristics. They will study and learn about the artworks by Cindy Sherman. Cindy Sherman is a contemporary artist whose photography explores the clichés of our society, dealing with gender, race, and social class. Although she uses herself as the model, her works are not self-portraits but rather visual character studies. Her work has evolved over time from creating narrative fragments to more straightforward images of created characters. From analyzing the work of Sherman, students will create written character studies to be used as the basis for a character in a photography lesson.
The Process
Because the process of responding to art is similar in the steps to analyze literature, I will utilize the analysis of characters to bridge students' learning across curriculums. Throughout each lesson, I will employ various strategies to guide students gradually in the process of developing, creating, revising, and analyzing artworks.
Each lesson will begin with an introduction of the artist. Students will be introduced to the artist by viewing a selection of his or her artwork and will be engaged in a whole class critique that will be guided by my questions. The purpose of the critique is to allow students to develop their oral skills of analysis and interpretation. This process will help guide them in developing their own judgments that are based on the critical analysis of the artworks. To focus students on critical analysis, it is important that the guided questions are based on art criticism and the analysis of the characters depicted in the artworks. Although the discussion will be guided by my questions, students should be allowed to express themselves openly during this step. Because of this, there are no "wrong answers" during the discussion. It is important to note that this step can take up an entire class session. To keep students on topic, I will guide students to focus only on elements in the artworks that they will employ in their own creations.
After I have introduced the artist and his or her work, students will write responses to written guided questions that will focus them on developing the characters that they wish to depict in their own artwork. It is during this activity that I will employ literary techniques that apply to analyzing characters.
After students have developed an idea for a character to represent in their artwork, I will introduce and demonstrate how to use the particular medium to be used in the lesson. In the first lesson, students will be introduced to Hanoch Piven's techniques of creating a portrait collage using objects. For the second lesson, students will be introduced to how to create a silhouette from cut paper. In the last lesson, students will be introduced to photography techniques and learn how technical aspects can aid in the depiction of the characters in their artworks.
Students will then be provided with time to experiment with the media and practice the techniques I have demonstrated. In this step they will use their written work as reference as they begin to experiment with creating their artwork. They will focus on creating their character using the art techniques in such a way that viewers (their classmates) would be able to interpret their character in the ways that the artist (the student) intended.
During this process, students will be provided with opportunities to revise their work. A key component of the revision activities are for students to be able to view their own works in progress and the work of their classmates in a critical manner to determine if they have visually expressed their characters in a successful manner. They will engage in peer critiques to determine if the written descriptions of their characters match the peer interpretations of their visual work.
Before they begin the final revisions to their work, students will have one-on-one teacher meetings to discuss their work and any possible revisions that may be necessary.
After their individual teacher meetings they will be provided with class time to complete their work.
As closure to each lesson, students will complete written responses that require them to use the four steps of art criticism to critically describe, analyze, and interpret their characters and artworks to determine if they were successful in the project.
General Assessment Strategies
To assess students' knowledge during these lessons I will utilize various assessment strategies throughout the unit. During the introduction to each lesson, I will engage students in verbal response sessions. I will assess their understanding of the artist I have introduced, the elements that the lesson is focusing on, and their ability to critically analyze the depicted characters. This first form of assessment is critical and will allow me to assess if I will need to spend more time explaining concepts or allow more time for discussion. It is important not to move to the next step until students have a clear understanding of what they are looking at and to be focused on during the making of their own artwork. While they work, I will check in with students individually to assess their understanding of the concepts for the day. Some students jump right into working without thinking about why they are making their art. I will ask students what they are trying to say about their character? And how are they trying to say it? How are they using the mediums chosen to help show who their characters are? Students will also be assessed on their written work. After they develop a written description of their character for their artwork, I will provide them with written feedback and engage them in one-on-one teacher meetings to help develop their ability to express their character in their artwork. During these meetings I am looking for students to be able to discuss the reasons why they depicted their characters in the way that they choose. The intent of these assessment strategies is for students gradually to develop and refine their skills within each lesson.
