After explaining Impressionism and Post–Impressionism, I plan to teach my students how to analyze visual texts –– paintings as well as sculptures. First of all we will visit the school art gallery where we have an interesting collection of paintings: portraits, objects, landscapes, and abstract images. Our first activity will be to sit in front of a landscape painting and to observe it for a few minutes. Soon after that, each student will have five minutes to describe the painting. Each will then share his/her writing while the others will take notes of the details they might have missed. At this point, I will prompt them to carefully observe the colors used by the painter, discuss their brightness and gradation. They will have to find the focus of the painting and describe how they think the artist has reproduced the contrast between light and shade.
After this first detailed description of the painting, I will ask them to take few minutes and focus on the specific colors used by the artist before writing a paragraph in which they describe what emotions those colors evoke. We will share these reflections and discuss the various interpretations. We will also analyze how the artist has reproduced the shapes, paying particular attention to whether the painter has been quite accurate or whether the design is simple, maybe somewhat primitive. I will point out the design or shape in the painting because I want them to understand what the Impressionist and Post–impressionist painters mean with those terms.
Our second class will be again in the school gallery, but this time they will work in groups of three and they will select one of the artifacts in the exhibit. They will have to describe, analyze and discuss the piece they will choose as they did during our first visit (the specific instructions are in the lesson plan section of this unit). Once they have concluded their analysis, we will open up the discussion and we will take brief notes on the following relationships:
|
·
|
colors emotions/feelings
|
|
·
|
design/shape emotions/feeling
|
I will also ask them to analyze and discuss whether these artifacts are rich in specific details or whether they simply represent the object of the painting. They will discuss what emotions and/or feelings they think the painter has tried to convey, and what emotions they experience. To conclude this lesson on visual texts, we will visit the Yale Art Gallery. During that visit, each student will choose one painting to closely analyze and discuss.
Once we have returned from our trip to the Yale Art Gallery, the students will conclude this part with a painting project. Each student has the opportunity to select the subject of his/her work (self–portrait, landscape, object – i.e. fruit, vase with flowers, or another person). When they have finished this project, each student will display his/her artifact, and as a group we will analyze and discuss each work. At this point, we are ready to write about the most important characteristics of modern painting.
