Impressionist Managerie Grades 7
& 8
By Carmella Tuliszewski
OBJECTIVE
Knowledge- The students learn of the works of various
Impressionists and Post-Impressionists artists including- Monet, Cezanne,
Seurat, and Vincent van Gogh. They also understand their influence
on Modern Art.
Skill- The students learn to incorporate stylistic
colors and brushstrokes to create an Impressionist painting. The use calendar photos of animals to
draw from.
Attitude- The students experience the unique
expressive qualities of Impressionist painting.
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Teacher begins slide presentation
1. “Poplars in Spring”,
1881 by Claude Monet. This
painting reflects the artist’s philosophy that "landscape is nothing but
an impression - an instantaneous one." Monet waited and watched the
shifting sun and shadows and then quickly brushed in the moment he wanted. He
liked to paint the same scene many times so he could study the effects of
changing light and weather. Children frequently trailed the artist and carried
his canvases.
This painting is Monet's reaction
to a brisk spring day at Fécamp, as the breeze ruffles the trees, and clouds
tumble by in a luminous sky. Like a true Impressionist, he has applied
brushstrokes of brilliant blue, green, and yellow in contrasting patterns. Notice the off-center composition of the
trees against the sky. Like other Impressionists, Monet was probably influenced
by the asymmetrical compositions of popular Japanese wood-block prints.
- The term Impressionism was first used in 1874.
- However, Impressionism wasn't always as well liked as
it is today. In fact the term was used by a Journalist (Louis Leroy) to criticize
Claude Monet’s work!
- The term comes from one of Monet’s paintings called “Impressionism:
Sunrise”
- Impressionist artist took ordinary objects and used
color to illustrate light and shadow.
- Impressionism is a style of painting characterized by
an artist’s abstract interpretation of objects or scenes.
- Unmixed primary colors and small brush strokes are
used to simulate actual reflected light.
- Impressionism was about playing on emotions as well as
imagination.
- Some the most famous names from the time are Monet,
Manet, Seurat, Degas, Renoir, and Van Gogh.
Technological advances of portable
easels and metal tubes that stored paint indefinitely allowed Impressionists
like Monet to take extended painting trips outdoors. A wide range of pigments
was also available, though Monet used a small, typical Impressionist palette of
eight to ten colors. "The real point," he wrote a friend, "is to
know how to use the colors." Despite failing eyesight, the artist painted
well into his eighties. The public discovered his work by 1890, and his
fortunes quickly improved. By 1920, the painter who once had struggled to feed
and clothe his family complained about the "too-frequent visits from
buyers who often disturb and bore me."
Looking
Questions
Describe the shapes that you see. What shapes are
repeated?
Notice
brushstrokes of warm colors next to brushstrokes of cool colors.
Name
two colors that are complementary to each other.
Where
do the colors contrast?
Do
you see any outlines?
Look
carefully at the textures of the trees, leaves, grass and sky. How do the
brushstrokes describe different textures?
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2. “Still Life with Basket of Fruit”, 1888 by Paul Cézanne. What’s going
on here? (Students may not know) Let’s see, if we follow the table under the
tablecloth, what happens at the other end of the table? (It looks broken.) Yes, and how about this pot? (It doesn’t look like it’s really sitting on
the table; looks like it will fall over.)
Yes, there’s a lot going on here.
Cézanne believed that because of our prior knowledge, we actually see
things in our minds eye the way we know them to be not the way we
actually see them. He shows this
in his art by modifying the perspective, so that we see all the objects at once
from different points of view. Another
very important aspect of Cézanne’s work was the way he divided color. The most distinctive feature about Cézanne
and all the Post-Impressionists work was division of color. Unlike the Impressionists before them they
did not blend or try to blur the image on the canvas. Instead they each deliberately and in their
own distinctive ways blended on their palettes and applied one color at a time
side by side. Teacher pins up
“Mont Sainte-Victorie”, 1904 and writes on board the following highlighted
words as she talks. Cézanne’s method was with small blocks of color placed
side-by-side or juxtaposed to form an image.
Looking
Questions
Does
this painting seem radical to you in any way?
Discuss
Cézanne's choice of objects. Do some of them seem odd or distorted?
Are
there any colors that surprise you?
What
circular shapes do you see? What do the circular shapes represent?
Where
do you see triangles? Straight lines? Curvy lines?
What
shapes did he choose to repeat?
Do
some of the objects have similar colors?
What makes a Cezanne a Cezanne?
- SHAPE- reduced
objects to geometric shapes.
- COLOR- modeled
with patches of color placed side by side or “juxtaposed” the color, he
did not use shading or contours
- PERSPECTIVE- modified his perspective to show different views of objects
within the same picture; this demonstrates his belief that we see all
sides simultaneously.
Cézanne believed that everything in nature could be broken down into a
cube, a sphere or a cylinder. His ideas
and techniques were the precursor to
Picasso and the Cubist movement of the 20th century.
3. “The Starry Night”, 1889 by Vincent Van Gogh. No
introductions needed here, you have probably studied this artist since
Kindergarten. As you can see Van Gogh
also used division of color to form his images but in a very different way than
Cézanne. What are the differences
between these two paintings? (Mont and
Starry Night) (Van Gogh’s dashes of
color move) Yes. While Cézanne was interested in how we see
things, Van Gogh was much more interested in the emotions well
feel as we see them. Van Gogh’s dashes
and separations of color want
us to get closer, to become involved and move with the scene.
What
is a word you would use to describe Van Gogh’s work? (Movement, powerful, emotional) And all these words are a form of
expression. Expressionism in art is the
distortion of form and color for emotional interpretation. What does that mean? (It doesn’t show things realistically, it
changes the look of the subject to express a feeling.) Yes, very good! The less a painter is obliged to stick to the
natural look of things the greater his expressive range should be.
When
we say that expressionist painting is a “free” expression, we must still
remember that what may look like a very free painting may still be a highly
calculated one. A perfect example is
“The Starry Night”, 1889 by Van Gogh, established as a classic of modern art.
Looking
Questions
1. Which Element of Art strikes you the most? (Color)
2. How is color used to
create balance? (Lights and darks)
3. Where is the most
dramatic dark in the picture?
(The
cypress is played against the most dramatic light of the fiery moon on the
opposite side of the picture. This also
points to contrast and value, two other elements and principles of
art. There is Balance here in the upward
twisting of the cypress springing from the ground, used as a kind of brake to
the forward twisting rush of the comet-like form across the sky.)
4. After you see this
beautiful color what next gets your attention?
(Movement. In the center of this explosive sky winds
the Milky Way. Van Gogh’s invented and
expressive form of the Milky Way).
5. What other repetition or “balancing act” is happening here?
The
cypress tree and the church steeple. (This
little church steeple in the middle of all this energy actually helps to unify
the composition.) How does it do this? By
repeating the vertical direction of the tree and by breaking up the hills in
the background. (The rushing line of the
horizon might otherwise carry us too quickly across the art and off the edge of
the canvas. This delicate balancing and
repetitions is the main reason why a picture of such violent force is self-contained
and not chaotic.)
“The Starry Night” is so charged with emotion
that it is tempting to believe that some sort of spontaneous combustion created
it. Van Gogh’s paintings always seem to
have come straight from the easel; we seem to be in the painter’s presence-
even after we discover that this is a calculated, well thought out
picture. And we know this because we
have Van Gogh’s preliminary drawings for various parts of the picture, at least
one earlier study of the same subject and his letters over a period of many months
with references to his plans for its development. In his letters he talks again and again about
his plans for this piece.
He wrote a friend, who
admired his expression in this work,
“That was not
accidental. I drew it many times and
there was no feeling to it. After I had
done the pictures that were so stiff, came the others…How does it happen that I
can express something like that? Because
it has taken form in my mind before I start on it. What I am doing is not by accident but
because of real intention and purpose.”
Sounds
contradictory doesn’t it? To have a work
look so spontaneous and be so calculated at the same time. Expressionist art like Van Gogh’s by nature of
it’s intensity and personal quality, reaches it’s highest achievement using the
whole accumulation of knowledge and technical skill at the artist immediate
command, as if spontaneous use. But to
think of an artist inspired to create a picture without preliminary work is as
unreasonable as to imagine an actor giving an inspired performance without
having learned his lines or a poet creating a masterpiece in a language he
doesn’t know.
What makes a Van Gogh a Van Gogh?
1.
Composition- Uses balance, repetition, contrast and movement to
take the viewer through the picture.
2.
Thick Application
of Paint- Principle feature of Van
Gogh’s work, using Impasto, relief-like technique to add direction and emotion.
3.
Contours- Uses outlines to bring together large areas of color
to create divided shapes.
4.
Color- Van Gogh’s colors do not reflect real life but the
feeling of the moment; often uses complementary color contrasts for direct
effect.
Van Gogh’s ideas and technique were the precursor to the Expressionists Movement of the 20th
century. This movement also extended
into Abstract Expressionism or nonrepresentational expression as in the work of
Jackson Pollack.
_______________________________________________________________
4. “Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte”, 1887 by Georges Seurat. This
is a very unique and recognizable style of painting. Tell me how the division
of color is handled here. (Dots) Yes, Seurat was a major force behind
the Post-Impressionists movement. He was
the first to use this new idea of division of color and has come to be known as
the founder of Post Impressionism.
In fact, there are many examples in which Van Gogh, Cézanne and Gauguin
have at one time experimented with his pointillism technique
Looking
Questions
What is happening with color
the further into the picture we look, especially with the figures, shadows and
water?
There
is a rhythm here created by repeating patterns.
Point out the repeating patterns.
Which
Complementary colors are dominated here?
Seurat’s Pioneer work in optical
mixing was a great influence on the Op Art Movement.
Teacher ends slide show
and demonstrates how optical mixing works.
On
a square of paper she has painted blue dots and yellow dots very separate of
each other. But when she holds it at a
distance to show students they will say the color is green. She passes around the square so that they can
see how their eyes were “fooled”.
After viewing
these 4 major Post-Impressionists, do you think they were just a later
continuation of the Impressionists or were they very different? (Very different) Yes, in fact the Impressionists were not at
all thrilled about the appearance of these artists on the scene. The Impressionists had a long hard struggle
to be accepted in the 19th century art world. The ironic thing is that when their struggle
was over and critics and the general public had accepted them as serious
artists, along came another younger group of artists who thought they had a
better way of doing things. Renoir
commented on the waning of Impressionism, “I had rung Impressionism dry and I
finally came to the conclusion that I knew neither how to paint or how to
draw.” And so it became time for a new
approach and a new way of seeing the world.
This new group of artists became known as the Post-Impressionists. A lot of people today tend to put these two
groups together as if there were no difference between them. But they were very different and many did not
like each other. Some of the
Impressionists, especially Monet, fought very hard to keep these new artists
out of their exhibitions. This new group of artists was the first to be known
as “Avant-garde.” What does avant-garde
mean? (Unconventional, strange.)
This is the
beginning of what we think of today as the Modern World and and the beginning
of Modern Art. As you have seen these
particular artists- Monet, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin and Seurat all had a
great influence on the art movements of the 20th century.
ACTIVITY-
What the students will do.
1.
Students
view and participate in teacher’s presentation.
2.
Students
choose their animal photo
3.
They
lightly draw the subject on 12” x 18” paper.
4.
Teacher
demonstrates the various techniques shown in the presentation and gives
students some time to experiment with brush strokes and color mixing.
5.
Students
choose their process and begin painting.
6.
Teacher
monitors around room encouraging students to try a few “avant garde” color
combinations in subject and shadows as accomplished by the artists of the
Impressionist era.
SUPPLIES
Tempera Paints, bristle brushes, water
12” x 18” white
paper, pencils, and erasers
Photo research for
animals
Presentation
prepared ahead of time by teacher
Art History
Reference- Monet,
Cezanne, Vincent van Gogh, Georges Seurat
NAEA
Standards- 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Assessment/Evaluation- This lesson is successful if they will be able to recognize painting
styles of the four Impressionists discussed and complete an Impressionist style
painting.
Examples of student work.
I collected animal photo calendars every year when they went on sale for $1 each. This is what the students worked with.
I constructed table top easels from corregated cardboard. Students used these to clip their reference photos on while they worked. They said it made them feel like "real artists".
Even tho the medium used here is only tempera, use bristle brushes for this as it adds to the impressionist quality brush stroke.
Demonstrating the teachniques and the practice time before starting the project really helps with their confidence once they start in on the real thing.
I almost always used this lesson to follow last weeks lesson on value painting. It really reinforced what they have already practiced and demonstrated the carry over of what they had learned.
Feel free to modify for your needs and e-mail me with any questions or to let me know if you tried it and how it went. I'd love to hear from you!
This lesson was always successful even for the most timid of teenage painters.
Good luck! Carmella
