SANDWICH
ART HISTORY
Grade K - Art All Around
Lesson 1 –‘‘Introduction”
INTRODUCTION
When children are in school for the first time at this early age, we feel it is helpful to visit the class for the first time with the purpose of getting acquainted. The children have such a natural curiosity that it is necessary to spend some time to know them and helping them to know you and why you are there.
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The following is a list of ideas to present and some simple definitions to help you prepare:
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Introduce yourself to the class. Talk about "art is all around".
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Review the concept of a volunteer.
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Explain what a museum is. Art can be in museums.
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Explain what collectors are.
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Explain how museums protect their collections.
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Explain what a reproduction print is.
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Talk about local museums.
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Explain why people make art.
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Show various prints.
Museum: A place that collects, protects and teaches about the things they own. There are many kinds of museums. Some museums primarily collect only one type of thing e.g. Sandwich Glass Museum. Some museums collect only paintings. Some, like Heritage Plantation, collect a lot of things that have something in common. The collections at Heritage are all things that are American.
Volunteer: A person who does a job to help out but who isn't paid to do the job. Volunteers work because they enjoy it, because they like learning new things or because they have skills that will help the place where they volunteer. Sometimes children volunteer in class or at home to do jobs to help out the teacher or family. (These jobs might be discussed too.)
Collections: The things that a museum owns, takes care of and teaches about are the objects in their collection.
Museums protect their collections in many ways:
From theft and fire - alarms and guards.
From sunlight - special indoor light and window shades to keep them from fading.
From people - Gloves are used when handling things to keep oils from our skin from getting in to the objects and leaving marks.
They also put things in cases so visitors won't touch them.
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Why people make art: Today I've brought some things to help you learn more about art. We want you to know that there are many kinds of art and that people have always made art for various reasons: Religion, decoration, to remember, to express feelings, to tell stories, to advertise. No matter why it is made, or who made it, the art around us helps us to appreciate our lives more fully. After you visit a museum you sometimes look at things around you more carefully.
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Reproduction Prints: Art is everywhere in the world. Some famous paintings are very far away in other countries in museums there. We can't bring them to your classroom so we buy pictures of them and bring the pictures of the real painting to show you.
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MATERIALS
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1. George Washington - After 1796, , Gilbert Stuart, American (1755-1828) oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Term: Portrait
At the time Gilbert Stuart painted the portraits of George and Martha Washington [1980.2], he was the foremost portraitist in the United States. He was, in effect, the unofficial painter to the new nation. He portrayed many leading political figures and wealthy citizens, and his sitters also included James Monroe, James Madison, and John Adams [1999.590].
This most famous image of George Washington was commissioned from Stuart along with its pendant of Martha Washington shortly before the president retired from public service. Stuart never delivered the portraits. Washington’s popularity as a national hero escalated after his death, and Stuart used this painting of the president as the model for the numerous replicas ordered from him over the years. Stuart reportedly referred to the image irreverently as his hundred dollar bill—the price he charged for a copy. Over sixty copies survive, and the portrait ultimately became the source for the face of Washington (in reverse) on the U.S. $1 bill.
2. The Mandril, , Oskar Kokoschka (coh-cosh-cah) Austrian (1886-1980),
Oil painting, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam
For Kokoschka dynamic brush marks were an essential characteristic of Expressionism. His models should be in constant movement. He did not wish to sketch merely the body, but the body in movement. Animals were ideal subjects for him because they do not pose. Kokoschka painted this mandrill in the London Zoo.
Kokoschka painted the mandrill in London Zoo. In his painting he emphasizes the wild, untamed nature of the animal, in a sense giving it back its freedom. Nothing in this painting makes you think of small cages and thick bars. ‘When I was painting him, I saw [that] this is a wild, isolated fellow, almost like a mirror image of myself. Someone who wants to be alone.’
3. Rainy Season in The Tropics, 1866, Frederick Edwin Church, American (1826-1900) Oil on canvas 56 1/4 x 84 3/16 in. (142.9 x 213.8 cm) The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
​Term: Landscape
“Rainy Season in the Tropics” is one of the most celebrated works by the second-generation Hudson River School artist Frederic Edwin Church. Despite being a highly theatrical, fantastical, and symbolic landscape, the scene incorporates a number of scientifically accurate and observed elements. The double rainbow that spans the canvas, notable for the reversal of the color spectrum that occurs in the second of its two bands, is technically known as Alexander’s band, and Church’s meticulous depiction of it suggests that he may have consulted a scientific treatise when painting the scene.
Furthermore, the tropical fauna emerging from the bottom right corner of the painting is based on botanical sketches Church made while living in Jamaica. Church and his wife retreated to the island in 1865 after the deaths of their two children from diphtheria, but when they returned to the United States the following year they were expecting a child. Many scholars interpret “Rainy Season in the Tropics” as a reflection of Church’s renewed optimism, both about his personal life and about a spirit of national unity following the end of the American Civil War.
4. Blue Atmosphere, 1963, Helen Frankenthaler, American (1928- 2011), Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
​Term: Abstract Art
Although she was influenced by other artists of her time, she developed her own style of art that is considered Abstract Expressionism. (colors used by the artist showed feelings and emotion, no familiar objects or shapes, (i.e. circles, squares, triangle, etc.)
She was thought of as a pioneer and the first artist to use a method called “soak and stain”. She thinned her paint and let it soak into the canvas. She would pour onto the canvas instead of using a brush and would leave the splatter marks and drips to show how she does the process.