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Oct 24 2022

The “Isms” of Art History, Pt. 2

Last week, we looked at five “isms” in art history: Mannerism, Neo-Classicism, Romanticism, Realism, and Impressionism. This week, we’ll consider five of the more recent “isms.”

Post-Impressionism – (very late 1800s and into the turn of the 20^th century) Seurat, Van Gogh, Rousseau, Cezanne. This movement overlapped with impressionism, but those who tried an impressionistic approach soon abandoned it for a more structural approach to composition and color theory, using dots (Seurat) or patches (Cezanne) of color and optical mixing.₃ The actual quality of the paint took on a greater role, as in the works of Van Gogh with his short, thick strokes.

Symbolism – (turn of the 20^th century) By the end of the 19^th century, there was an air of discontent over the continent of Europe and the Art world. There was a group of artists eager to abandon the realism of impressionism. This gave birth to Symbolism where symbols from mythology and dream imagery took on greater significance. Some of the major artists of this period were Odilon Redon, Marc Chagall, Edvard Munch, and Gustav Klimt.

Cubism – (the first two decades of the 1900s) This well-known movement came on the heels of Post-Impressionism and overlapped with Symbolism. Cubism was a term coined by an art critic after he viewed a landscape painting by Georges Braque. Braque and Pablo Picasso were good friends and the co-founders of this movement that truly turned the art world on its head. Influenced by the masks of African tribes, this style is characterized by dividing the picture plane into what appears to be facets. Because we see multiple surfaces and vantage points in viewing an object all at once, it is clear that the cubist artists had abandoned all traditional rules of perspective or realism.₄ Though started by Picasso and Braque, other artists soon adopted this style of painting – Fernand Leger, Robert Delauney and Marcel Duchamp to name a few.

Surrealism – This movement had its birth in 1924 with a publication by artist Andre Breton about spontaneous creation. Surrealism is rooted in the burgeoning field of psychiatry, and the influential theories of Sigmund Freud.₅ The dreamy and bizarre imagery is simultaneously intriguing and disturbing. Some of the most notable surrealist painters are Salvador Dali, Rene Magritte, Yves Tanguy, and Giorgio De Chirico.

[NOTE: Due to copyright restrictions, we cannot display paintings from this period. However, you
can see an example of Salvador Dali’s iconic painting, The Persistence of Memory at: http://www.moma.org/collection/works/79018]

Abstract Expressionism – this movement came about in New York in the 1940s, as a break from conventional subject matter and techniques. The label of abstract expressionist includes a wide circle of artists over a span of many years where the emphasis was more on the process of creating rather than the finished product. The early years were focused on abstracted, but recognizable subject matter and certainly more figurative. This morphed into more and more gestural (such as the drip and splatter paintings of Jackson Pollock) to the flat and simple color field work of Morris Louis, Mark Rothko and Helen Frankenthaler. What contributed to the impact of abstract expressionist paintings on the public was the scale: most canvases were of an immense size. Other well-known artists of this genre are Willem deKooning, Robert Motherwell, Franz Kline and Adolf Gottlieb.

[NOTE: Due to copyright restrictions, we cannot display paintings from this period. However, you
can see examples of Jackson Pollock’s work at http://www.moma.org/collection/artists/4675]

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Oct 17 2022

The “Isms” of Art History, Pt. 1

Guest post by Pat Knepley

The history of visual art through the ages is generally broken down into movements –periods of time when artists were like-minded and worked around a set of core beliefs…whether they knew each other or not! Since the time of the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century, there have been many of these periods in Art, most of which end in the suffix “ism”. The suffix “ism” at the end of English words means pertaining to the root word or signifying a belief, as is seen in the words racism, atheism, and terrorism.

Throughout history, the term that is attributed to a period of art is usually given not by the artists that are known for the style, but by critics who are trying to understand the movement, or historians at a much later time. Here are some of the major “isms” of art movements after the Renaissance and a brief explanation. But not every period in art history is covered by this list; there are many periods that do not end in “ism”, like the Baroque era and Rococo periods of the late 17th and early 18th century.

Mannerism – (mid 1500s) This movement developed in Europe as the Renaissance was ending in the late 1520s. The most well know mannerist was Michelangelo Buonarotti who painted the Sistine Chapel. Mannerism is often considered as anti-classical, where the human form is elongated and twisted into exaggerated poses. Another mannerist painter is El Greco, a Greek artist who spent most of his years living and working in Toledo Spain.

Neo-Classicism – (the mid-late 1700s). Due to recent archeological discoveries in the mid-1700s, there was a resurgent interest in classical Roman and Greek antiquities, and this prompted a return to classical forms and ideals for contemporary painters.₂ Some of the neoclassical painters include Anton Mengs, and Jacques-Louis David in Europe and Benjamin West and John Singleton Copley in the newly formed United States. This art movement is defined by a return to reason and classical ideals and virtue.

Romanticism – (late 1700s-early 1800s) Gericault, Delacroix, JMW Turner; intuition and emotion over rationalism, grand heroics over the commonplace. This is also a time when the exotic was embraced…different locales and extraordinary landscapes. There is an air of mysticism to the landscapes of English artist John Constable, and his successor, JMW Turner. In France, the romantic period of painting spanned two wars, the French Revolution, and the Napoleonic wars, and was, therefore, a counter-punch and escape from the reality of a hard French life at that time.

Realism – (France, mid-1800s) The Romantic movement was characterized by depicting the world as it really was- ordinary people doing ordinary things. People were represented as they really were rather than an idealized version, so if the local banker was a heavy set man with a wart on his nose, then the artist would paint exactly that. The realism movement was primarily in France and is signified by the works of Millet, Gustav Courbet, and Edouard Manet.

Impressionism – (the late 1800s) The Impressionist era started in France started in the 1860s and is probably the most famous “ism” of the art movements in history. It is characterized by a great attention to the play of light on colors in nature at particular times of the day. Artists could now take their paint tubes out into the world and paint in the open air to capture the impression of a moment in time. Some famous Impressionists in France were Claude Monet, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, and Edgar Degas. The most well-known American impressionist (though she studied in Paris) was Mary Cassatt.

Following is a short video that explains what Mannerism is:

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Oct 10 2022

How to Incorporate Art Production into Your Art Class

Guest post by Pat Knepley

This month, we have been learning about Discipline-Based Art Education (DBAE), and how it can help you incorporate art into your overall curriculum, rather than just having it as an add-on or recreational time.

DBAE is a means of teaching art by using art history, art criticism, aesthetics, and art production as the foundational elements of your art program.

This week, we’re focusing on the part of art instruction that often strikes fear into the hearts of parents: art production. For those who don’t have much talent or experience with art, trying to teach art production can be daunting. The good news is that it doesn’t need to be.

The biggest impediment to successful experiences in making art is a lack of confidence. But I believe home educators can have an enormous influence if students focus on the process of being creative rather than focusing only on the product.

As with the previous weeks, let’s consider art production by looking one more time at Leonardo da Vinci’s beautiful work, The Last Supper.

A great lesson to tie in to The Last Supper would be to ask your student to remember a favorite meal experience, for example, Christmas, Thanksgiving, or perhaps a favorite birthday, and make a drawing using colored pencils of the place and the people there. Show different facial expressions that portray the emotions displayed during the meal.

Provide a focal point: Who was the center of attention? Why were all eyes on this person at this meal? And what is the exact moment being described with the picture?

Perhaps when Grandpa carved the turkey? Or when big sister blew out her birthday candles? Or maybe when your friend laughed so hard at your joke that milk came out of his nose.

Re-creating special moments through art can be a very powerful vehicle for communicating what resonates with the artist and consequently with the viewer. The best part about incorporating art instruction, and specifically MAKING art, into the core curriculum is that your creativity knows no bounds.

Decorate a cake in the splatter and drip style after studying a Jackson Pollock.

Try your hand at growing sunflowers after discovering all of the many sunflower paintings by Vincent Van Gogh.

Break out the Play-Doh® to channel your inner August Rodin once you’ve explored his unique, rugged sculpture style.

The results are never wrong. The process of exploration is where the learning takes place.

So, my advice to the home educator is to consider art instruction not be a “nice-to-have,” or an extra (if we can find time), but an integral part of any well-rounded classical education. The benefits to students have been well documented, and the opportunities for your left-brained as well as right-brained child to think about God’s world in creative terms is invaluable.

The inclusion of art can be so much more than hoping kids learn to draw. Art history cannot be separated from history in general, and the cognitive twins of art criticism and aesthetics provide deeper levels of thinking. Therefore, I encourage you to dive into the messy, wonderful, crazy and fun universe that is art, with all of its components. You and your children don’t want to miss out on all that our creative God can reveal.

In the following video, you can learn about 1-point perspective by observing how it works in da Vinci’s “The Last Supper.” Watch the video, then try it for yourself.

Author’s Note: The area of art education that makes people, if not nervous, perhaps hesitant . . . is the art-making process: art production. But drawing is a skill like any other skill. I believe it can be taught (like how to swing a tennis racquet can be taught) with age-appropriate instruction. I recommend the DVD-based drawing instruction that I host: Art Class from See the Light for ages 6 to 10. With this fun, foundational, skill-building series, kids of all ages will feel successful when learning to draw.

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Oct 03 2022

How to Incorporate Aesthetics into Your Art Class

Guest post by Pat Knepley

Why should the home educator include art as part of the core classical curriculum? Because all of humanity through the ages has used the arts to tell us stories about every aspect of the lives of the people – their culture, their nations, their history, their beliefs.

A general understanding of what is involved in art education is probably more valuable to the homeschooler than any artistic talent.

There are four components to a well-thought-out art program as described in the Discipline-Based Arts Education (DBAE). These components are art history, art criticism, art production, and aesthetics. The home educator should consider all of these components as equally valuable when they think of teaching art, as intimidating as that might be.

The best way to explain how to encompass all four components is to use a piece of art as an example that most people would be familiar with: Leonardo da Vinci’s famous fresco The Last Supper.

In this post, we’ll be considering aesthetics.

Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy that deals with beauty in the world and seeks to define what makes something beautiful. To further develop a child’s art literacy, ask some questions about what he/she feels about a piece of art.

Why does this appeal to you?
What makes it beautiful to look at?
How do you feel when you look at that?

Helping kids to relate to the world and communicate in art terms is immensely beneficial.

In a nutshell, art criticism is how one thinks about art and aesthetics is how one feels about art.

Aesthetics is the primary component of art used in interior design and fashion design, which seeks to discover what pleases the most people. Think about how you would feel walking into an expensive, exclusive restaurant with velvet curtains and marble tables versus the aesthetics of a local coffee shop with chrome stools and laminate counters.

When someone talks about an emotional response to art or design, that is aesthetics.

This iconic Renaissance fresco offers a great opportunity to ask what emotions da Vinci was trying to evoke from the viewer by depicting such a dramatic scene from the Bible: the very moment when Jesus tells his followers that one of them will betray Him.

What clues does the viewer get as to the emotions revealed in this scene, such as the hand gestures?

What can you imagine each disciple saying in response to the Lord’s announcement that one of them will betray him that very night?

How does the artist increase the sense of drama by the composition?

When looking at a piece of artwork, it is just as important to ask how you feel about it as what you think about it. As you go through your school year, why not take the time to incorporate aesthetics into your program? Find a book about art or art history, or go to one of many online art museums, and have your children react to some of the paintings and other artwork they see there. Better yet, go to a real art museum if you live near one.

You don’t have to be an artist to have a rich homeschool art program.

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Sep 26 2022

How to Incorporate Art Criticism into your Art Class

Guest post by Pat Knepley

As an art teacher, I feel that art is an essential part of a well-rounded curriculum, as it adds so much value to the learning (and life) experience. But I am sure I need to do some convincing for reluctant home educators who already see a lot of course work they need to squeeze in to their daily routine. This is especially true when many homeschooling moms and dads confess their frustration with teaching art, because they don’t have artistic talents or abilities.

In an effort to show how teaching art need not be constrained by artistic talent, this month the See the Light blog is focusing on a discipline-based approach to art education. This approach focuses on integrating art with the disciplines, including art history, art criticism, aesthetics, and art production.

I am using Leonardo da Vinci’s, fresco The Last Supper as an example of how to approach a piece of art and explore fully each of the four disciplines for a rich art-learning experience. This week’s post will cover the next to a well-thought-out art program: art criticism. Again we return to The Last Supper as a base of understanding.

Art criticism simply involves talking about art. The viewer tries to get inside the head of the artist and ask questions such as, “What was the artist trying to say?” In art criticism, we learn to look at the art work with a critical eye as it relates to use of the seven art elements: line, shape, space, value, color, texture and form.

But the viewer should also look within herself and ask why she likes or dislikes this particular work. Being able to talk about a piece of art work and make it personal is a good way to increase critical thinking skills. There are ample opportunities to connect art to everyday learning. A basic understanding of the seven art elements and the five design principles (balance, proportion, rhythm, emphasis and unity) can be a great way to dive into a conversation when your son admires the graphics in a new game or your daughter gushes over a fabric design and texture.

When looking at The Last Supper, you would immediately notice the strong perspective that da Vinci employed in order to focus the viewer’s attention to the head of Jesus. The lines made if you follow where the ceiling meets the floor, and the lines made by the top of the tapestries on the wall create a strong vanishing point right at the head of Jesus. It was during this era of the Renaissance that artists discovered the principles of linear and aerial perspective to bring more realism to their works. da Vinci pioneered using one- point perspective to provide a strong focal point with his sacred subject matter. da Vinci also used geometry to arrange the rest of the composition. All of the twelve disciples are clumped in groups of three to form four triangles on the side of the table.

This can be a fun exercise for kids – print out copies of the image of The Last Supper and have your students use a marker to draw shapes where there are geometric aspects of da Vinci’s composition: the strong linear perspective and symmetrical balance. This compelling fresco captures the moment in Scripture when Jesus is at his last meal with his disciples, and has just said, “I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me.” His men are dumbfounded, asking “Surely, not I Lord!” The personalities of each of the disciples can be ascertained by the facial expression and body language that da Vinci was careful to individualize. It truly is an amazing work of art.

Note: Scroll down for a short (8 min) critical analysis of The Last Supper.

NEXT WEEK: We’ll continue our exploration of Discipline-Based Art Education by looking at The Last Supper from the perspective of aesthetics.

Take your art to the next level with See the Light videos:

And don’t miss these free resources from our blog:

Sep 19 2022

How to Integrate Art with History

There are four components to a well thought out art program as described in the Discipline-Based Arts Education (DBAE): Art History, Art Criticism, Art Production, and Aesthetics. The home educator should consider all of these components as equally valuable when they think of teaching art.

The best way to explain how to encompass all four components is to use a piece of art as an example that most people would be familiar with. Let’s look at Leonardo da Vinci’s famous fresco “The Last Supper”

Leonardo da Vinci was the quintessential Renaissance man of the late 15th century. He thought of himself as primarily an artist, but da Vinci was also a mathematician, inventor, scientist, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer. Da Vinci spent his younger years as an apprentice to a master artist and increased in skill and recognition.

Later on, da Vinci’s wealthy benefactor asked him to paint a fresco to decorate the refectory (dining hall) in the monastery of Santa Maria Della Grazie. Leonardo worked on this project from 1495 to 1498. Even though he was a great painter, da Vinci was constantly experimenting with his materials, so this project took a long time.

For centuries, frescos had been painted by mixing tempera or watercolor paint into the wet plaster of a wall. That required the artist to work quickly before the plaster dried. Leonardo experimented with tempera, watercolor and even oil-based paint on dry plaster in order to get more detail. The problem was this experimental technique didn’t work, and the paint began to flake off shortly after the piece was completed.

In the 1600s, someone felt it would be allowable to cut a door through the wall that contains the fresco, so Jesus’ feet and a portion of the table were lost forever. A series of artists over the centuries, seeing that da Vinci’s original brilliant color was flaking off, tried to maintain the masterpiece by re-painting over the original, but it was turning into a mess. Then during World War II, a bomb nearly destroyed the monastery. The refectory suffered a lot of damage but the wall with the fresco only had minor damage. Over the ensuing years, rain and water damage through the thinner, repaired walls caused mold to grow on the fresco.

After all those years of misfortune, the most famous painting in the world was in serious trouble. So in 1999, a twenty-year restoration was initiated in order to return the Last Supper back to Leonardo da Vinci’s original vision. Most of the layers of additional paint from other artists have been carefully removed and we can now see the fresco as close to the original as possible.

Next week: We’ll continue our introduction to Discipline-Based Art Education by examining The Last Supper from the perspective of Art Criticism.

The Last Supper — Leonardo da Vinci

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Take your art to the next level with See the Light videos:

And don’t miss these free resources from our blog:

Take your art to the next level with See the Light videos:

And don’t miss these free resources from our blog:

Take your art to the next level with See the Light videos:

And don’t miss these free resources from our blog:

Take your art to the next level with See the Light videos:

And don’t miss these free resources from our blog:

Take your art to the next level with See the Light videos:

And don’t miss these free resources from our blog:

Take your art to the next level with See the Light videos:

And don’t miss these free resources from our blog:

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