Picture Study - Elementary School
We began our study of Art Appreciation this year with Vincent Van Gogh's works. We studied "Bedroom at Arles", "Sunflowers", and "Self Portrait" (the one with the bandaged ear.) We looked at each painting in turn over a period of time. I had copies of them in books which I kept in a prominent spot, held open with large clips. If you have a print, or poster, simply hang them in a conspicuous spot. This way, the student has access to them easily. Many CMers find that purchasing last years' art calendars is a good source of prints.
In order to help establish a relationship with these paintings, the student drew a picture of his own room and furnishings in pastel chalk after the style of "Bedroom at Arles." I pointed out that the artist was away from home at the time and perhaps the bedroom was a place of comfort to him. It certainly looks that way.
When we studied "Sunflowers", the student used pastels to capture a vase of flowers that we had on our own table. And finally, using techniques from art lessons on the Sanford site, he did a self portrait shown here:
Another artist we studied was Marc Chagall. His fanciful, colorful paintings were attractive and lent themselves to picture narration. After studying the painting , "Woman with Blue Face" our student narrated the following:
"In the picture there was flowers, a bride and a green faced groom. There was a pegasus on top of a house. Up in the sky, on the left was a man playing a horn. And on the top right was a man playing a violin. There was a man on the bottom right with a musical instrument body. It was kind of like a guitar type body.
There was grass in their backyard.
The main colors were blue, black, pink, red, and white."
Here is the picture itself:
As the year progressed, we studied several other artists. Many times we used narration of a painting, as well as doing our own version of the painting. These are priceless examples of how art can speak to all of us at any age. I do not feel that you have to be an art expert in order to enjoy art. As I explained to the class, "Art" is what YOU like. There really is no right or wrong way to do it. You can adapt your art study to your child, his age, likes and dislikes, etc. You can give lots of detail into the artists life, or you can let the work speak for itself. Overall, I prefer the latter approach.
While we enjoyed the works of art, we often play classical music softly in the background. I like to choose music that lends itself to that particular artist or work. For example, while looking at the Marc Chagall painting above, we listened to Prokofiev's "Lieutenant Kizheh". Other favorites of the 7 year old were Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker" and "Swan Lake." We happen to own a lot of classical music, but you can purchase CD's with various selections on them from many on-line stores (BMG Classical Music, etc.) or check your local library and see what they have. Classical music and fine art is timeless. There is not much in today's world that is.
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