the guide - Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts

THE AMERICAN SCENE
2013-14
A CURRICULUM TOUR FOR FIFTH GRADE STUDENTS
Mary Cassatt, Françoise in Green, Sewing, 1908-1909, oil on canvas
Gift of the Ida Belle Young Art Acquisition Fund, 2009.0006
website: http://www.mmfa.org
THE AMERICAN SCENE
INTRODUCTION
The following curriculum guide has been developed for 5th grade teachers to serve as a study
guide for the various topics that will be covered during the tour “The American Scene.” The
guide includes the goals and objectives of the tour, the tour structure (including outreach visits
to the classroom and museum visits), major themes and topics, information about the artists and
artworks featured during the tour, and content standards for the Alabama Course of Study.
Goals:
In the Grade 5 curriculum, emphasis is placed on understanding, responding to, and producing
art while promoting the elements of art and principles of design through traditional, mixed and
digital media. In addition, the curriculum promotes an increased awareness of art and artists in
American history and culture.
Objectives:
This tour program is designed to meet several objectives. Students will become familiar with
commonly used art terms and will learn to look for signs of history and culture in works of art.
Students will study works of art, including portraits, landscapes, sculpture, genre scenes, and
abstract works. They will also experience interactive works of art in the ARTWORKS gallery and
create self-portraits in the studios.
Fifth grade students will:
•Analyze major themes in the collection
•Identify ideas and feelings expressed by individual artists in works of art
•Analyze paintings in terms of composition, color relationships, and the principles of balance,
unity and variety
•Understand how artists create the illusion of depth on a two dimensional surface
•Understand how to draw the proportions of the face
•Understand how artists use materials to create mass and volume in sculpture
•Compare and contrast works of art
•Understand the use of different art materials in the studio
•Apply concepts and ideas present in works of art in the gallery to art in the studio
•Use visual thinking skills and oral communication to discuss and analyze works of art
•Learn about works of art through multi-sensory experiences that encompass sound, movement,
and role-playing
THE AMERICAN SCENE
TOUR STRUCTURE
Outreach (30 to 35 minutes)
A Museum volunteer will visit each 5th grade classroom to make a brief presentation.
The presentation will prepare students for their upcoming Museum visit, introducing
tour concepts including types of art, vocabulary, and themes relevant to MMFA’s
Permanent Collection. By examining reproductions of works of art in their classrooms,
students will be prepared to discuss works of art on view at the Museum and apply
what they have learned to an art making activity.
Tour of the Museum in Three Parts (2 Hours)
1. Gallery Tour (35 minutes)
Works from the Permanent Collection will be used to explore the themes of American
Art, as they pertain to portraits, landscapes, sculptures, and genre scenes. Students
will make historical connections, use art vocabulary, develop critical thinking skills, and
explore ways of looking at art, including analyzing elements of art and principles of
design.
2. ARTWORKS Tour (35 minutes)
In the ARTWORKS gallery, students will have an opportunity to use multiple senses to
comprehend concepts addressed throughout the tour. Students will engage in physical
movements in response to jazz music, while projecting abstract patterns on the
Tannenbaum interactive screen. Students will also participate in role-playing exercises
when responding to the diorama based on Edward Hopper’s New York Office, and will
learn about constructing a face using correct proportions and placements of the
features.
3. Studio Activity (35 minutes)
The studio activity will include an art lesson incorporating concepts of the tour.
Students will use oil pastels, colored and patterned paper to create a self-portrait. The
students will take their works of art with them as a record of their experiences at the
Museum.
THE AMERICAN SCENE
TOUR CATEGORIES
Portrait
A portrait is a painting of one or more human figures. A portrait may include the head and
shoulders of the sitter(s), a three-quarter view (from the head to below the waist), and/or a fulllength view of the figure(s). A portrait painting may also include attributes that reveal more
about the individuality of the sitter. These attributes may include the type of clothing that is
worn, jewelry, hairstyle, and other objects placed in the vicinity, such as a book, a pair of
glasses, etc. Portraits may be depicted with a plain, dark background, or with a view of an
interior space, such as a bedroom or study room; they may also include a window with a view
of the surrounding landscape.
Landscape
A landscape is a painting that shows a scene from nature in which the place or the land is the
main subject. Landscape paintings are defined by a horizon line, which separates the earth
from the sky. The horizon line is equivalent to the viewer’s eye level, and is generally placed in
the center of the composition as a horizontal axis. However, the placement of the horizon line
may be closer to the top or bottom of the picture plane depending on how much land or sky the
artist chooses to represent. A centrally placed horizon line adds symmetry to the composition,
but an artist may choose to place it higher or lower to make the viewer’s perspective more
dynamic. Landscapes might represent a dramatic location such as a waterfall, or an ordinary
location such as the artist’s own garden.
Genre
A genre scene is a scene from everyday life in a particular time and place. In contrast to a
portrait, a genre scene captures the day-to-day activities of people in the home or community.
People may be engaged in a casual conversation, working in a factory or office, sewing a
knitted sweater, or having a picnic or meal with family and friends. Scenes from every day life
may also help us understand the historical context of a moment in time, in terms of the
customs and labor practices that characterize certain groups of people of a particular class,
race, gender, ethnicity, or region.
THE AMERICAN SCENE
TOUR CATEGORIES
Sculpture
A sculpture is a three-dimensional work of art that has height, width, and depth. When viewing a
sculpture in the collection, you can walk around it to get multiple views and comprehend what
the forms look like in a three-dimensional space. Sculpture, therefore, should be distinguished
from paintings, which are created on a flat surface to create the illusion of space rather than
occupying a “real” and physical space that the viewer is situated in. Since sculpture is threedimensional, artists tend to use materials that can be molded like clay, carved like marble, or
when transformed into another material, produce solid forms made of bronze or glass. Sculpture
may also be constructed with found objects that have been discarded and reassembled. Some
sculptures might represent figures or objects, or forms that inspired by the imagination.
(SUBCATEGORY)
Abstraction
In painting, abstraction often refers to works painted in the early 20th-century to the present,
which set out to simplify the subject matter depicted and reduce it to basic forms (line, shape,
and color), devoid of any “direct” reference to the world we recognize as “real.” Since the
everyday objects we observe in the world are obscured by simplification or abstraction, the
viewer uses his/her imagination to determine what concepts and/or representations are alluded
to in the work. Furthermore, the artist is free from the conventions that define the illusion of
three-dimensional space (since objects no longer occupy a “real” world) and therefore
constructs an imaginary space that draws us less to the natural world and more to a world
envisioned by the artist. In some cases, artists may choose to combine objects that are “real”
with objects that are “imaginary.” For example, some abstract works are simply fields of color,
while other works have geometric and organic shapes that recall man-made objects or objects
found in nature.
GENRE
GEORGE HENRY DURRIE (1820 – 1863)
Holidays in the Country, The
Cider Party, 1853
Oil on canvas!
ARTWORK
The central narrative of the painting consists of four men who have gathered in a barn for a
cider party, with music as entertainment. A black male, seated on a box with a fiddle in his left
hand, appears to have taken a respite from his performance. To the left of the fiddler, three
white males are standing, with smiles on their faces, as if they have just experienced a
satisfying performance. The central figure holds a pitcher of cider in one hand and a glass in the
other, while the black male seated to his right extends his hand in anticipation of the drink. The
animals in the painting add another layer to the narrative, as the horse, dog, and pig gaze
cautiously at one another, adding a certain degree of tension to the scene. There are several
details in the painting that help provide a historical context. A horseshoe hangs from the barn
door on the right with prongs pointed downward as a sign of bad luck. A caricature drawing on
the same door bears a close resemblance to Martin Van Buren. He is also recalled by the
initials OK found on the opposite door, a reference to his nickname, “Old Kinderhook”, as well
the Democratic O.K. Club, which promoted his re-election. The initials S. B. on the barn door
and the white sack inside the barn allude to the two factions of the Democratic Party, the “Free
Soilers” and the “Barn Burners,” who united in 1848 to nominate Van Buren.
ART HISTORY
Genre paintings are generally defined as narrative-driven scenes of everyday life painted in a
realistic style. By the mid–19th century, genre scenes were common in popular print media, and
artists would often have their work reproduced in journals like Harper’s Weekly or as prints by
Currier and Ives. Capturing the democratic spirit of the American homeland, artists portrayed
men, women and children in a variety of settings, including scenes of domestic life, political
events, agricultural and industrial labor, and leisure and entertainment. In general, genre scenes
reflect the dynamic changes in America at the time, including events related to the Civil War, the
changing attitudes to women’s roles in society, the debates over immigration, and the shifting
patterns of race relations following the manumission of slavery and the removal of Native
Americans. The most important and influential genre painter of the 19th century who draws close
parallels to Durrie is William Sidney Mount. Mount was not the first, but the foremost 19th century painter who depicted the common man at work and at leisure. Mount featured whites
and blacks together in the same social setting, reflecting democratic ideals at a time when racial
boundaries were strictly enforced. For example, Mount, who was from a family of musicians,
painted a wonderful portrait of an African American musician, titled, The Banjo Player, which
conveyed the power of music as a lively and unifying force.
ARTIST
George Henry Durrie (1820-1863) of New Haven, Connecticut, was an artist who aspired to
become a landscape painter. Not academically trained, George, and his
brother John, studied art independently, receiving support from their father,
who exhibited their work at his store during the day, and held public drawings
during the evening. After studying with local artist, Nathaniel Joselyn, Durrie
pursued a career as an itinerant portraitist, and later established himself as a
landscape painter. Currier and Ives, the 19th-century publishers of popular
chromolithographs, reproduced Durrie’s winter landscape paintings, which gave
him wider exposure as an artist. A watershed moment in his career occurred in 1853 when his
choice of subject matter changed from landscape to genre paintings, as represented in Holiday
in the Country, The Cider Party. Scenes from everyday life were quite popular in the mainstream
journals of the day, which may have influenced Durrie’s decision to expand his repertoire. He
was not well known outside of the New Haven, Connecticut area, and did not receive much
attention until the mid 20th-century, when art historians took a renewed interest in genre scenes
and Regionalism, which was popular during the New Deal era.
CONNECTIONS
In addition to landscape painting, genre paintings or scenes from everyday life were popular
subjects in America during the mid 19th-century. The interest in everyday life coincided with a
growing middle class, immigration from Europe, and an emerging industrial economy. In
“Democratic Vistas,” Walt Whitman described the everyday American as the embodiment of its
deepest values:
George Caleb Bingham, The County Election, 1852, oil on canvas; William Sydney Mount, The
Banjo Player, 1856, oil on canvas; Nathaniel Currier, Barn Burners (Cartoon), 1848.
“We see our land, America, her literature, esthetics, &c., as, substantially, the getting in form, or
effusement and statement, of deepest basic elements and loftiest final meanings, of history and
man -- and the portrayal, (under the eternal laws and conditions of beauty,) of our own
physiognomy, the subjective tie and expression of the objective, as from our own combination,
continuation, and points of view -- and the deposit and record of the national mentality,
character, appeals, heroism, wars, and even liberties -- where these, and all, culminate in native
literary and artistic formulation, to be perpetuated; and not having which native, first-class
formulation, she will flounder about, and her other, however imposing, eminent greatness, prove
merely a passing gleam; but truly having which, she will understand herself, live nobly, nobly
contribute, emanate, and, swinging, poised safely on herself, illumin'd and illuming, become a
full-form'd world, and divine Mother not only of material but spiritual worlds, in ceaseless
succession through time -- the main thing being the average, the bodily, the concrete, the
democratic, the popular, on which all the superstructures of the future are to permanently rest.”
Walt Whitman, Democratic Vistas
DISCUSSION
What is going on in this painting? What do you think each animal symbolizes? How would you
describe race relations as they are portrayed in Durrie’s painting? How does Durrie’s depiction
of race relations correspond with the historical events of the time?
GENRE
FRANCIS WILLIAMS EDMONDS (1806 – 1863)
Time to Go, 1857
Oil on canvas
!
ARTWORK
Seated in the humble abode of a protective father, a young man dressed in a jacket and slacks
converses with a young woman with the hope of pursuing a courtship. The woman tilts her head
modestly, as if embarrassed by the words of her suitor. The couple appears to have established
an intimate connection, but they are not alone. The father, seated on the left, has his back
slightly turned away from the couple, avoiding direct interference. Yet, his seeming detachment
from the conversation belies the uneasiness of his pose and physical proximity of his presence.
He glances over his shoulder with a sidelong look, while stoking the embers in the cast iron
stove and gazing impatiently at the young couple. Without opening his mouth, we can read his
mind. “Young man, I think it’s ‘time to go’.”
ART HISTORY
Genre paintings were quite prominent in American art by the mid 19th-century. This was
attributed to a rising middle class, in which men, women, and children played a prominent role in
the daily economic life of American society. Scenes of everyday life were featured in magazines
and reproduced in the popular print media, which made them accessible to the masses. In
terms of earlier antecedents, the tradition of genre painting had its roots in 17th-century Dutch
painting, which often depicted a wealthy merchant class enjoying the daily life afforded them by
thriving trade and commerce. The town of Hudson, in upstate New York, where Edmonds was
raised, preserved many features of Dutch society, including displays of civic and private virtue.
For example, the painting by Edmonds draws parallels to Gabriel Metsu’s The Intruders, c.
1660, and Gerard ter Borch the Younger’s, The Suitor’s Visit, c. 1658. In all three paintings, a
male suitor appeals to a woman in the presence of other family members, expressing
sentiments of love and familial bonds.
ARTIST
Francis Williams Edmonds was born in 1806 and raised in the town of Hudson
in upstate New York. Edmonds was discouraged from studying art, but his
parents tolerated his ongoing interest in the field. By the age of thirteen,
Edmonds experimented with painting techniques, and tried working from
nature. He desired to become an engraver, but he could not afford the fees for
an apprenticeship. Encouraged to pursue a more practical profession,
Edmonds entered banking in 1823 when his uncle, Gorham A. Worth, secured
a position for him at the Tradesmen’s Bank in New York City. By 1826, Edmonds resumed his
art studies. He took evening classes at the Antique School at the National Academy of Design,
and later exhibited his work in the National Academy of Design’s annual exhibitions. After
traveling to Europe with fellow American artists Asher B. Durand and John Kensett, Edmonds
resumed his life in the states. He re-married and continued to paint, but only sparingly, due to
the demands of the banking profession.
CONNECTIONS
Edmonds was a strong proponent of genre painting, a tradition that has its roots in 17th-century
Netherlandish art. In 1840, Edmonds submitted two paintings to the National Academy of
Design that focused on the theme of courting. Sparking (1839) and The City and the Country
Beaux (c.1839) relate to his later work in the Museum’s collection, but also recall paintings by
the 17th-century Dutch artists Gabriel Metsu and Gerard ter Borch the Younger.
Gerard ter Borch the Younger, The Suitor's Visit, c.1658, oil on canvas; Gabriel Metsu, The
Intruder, c.1660, oil on panel; Francis William Edmonds, The City and the Country Beaux,
c.1839, oil on canvas.
DISCUSSION
Francis Edmonds’ painting Time to Go depicts courtship during the 19th century. When looking
at the painting by Edmonds, how does courting compare to dating in today’s society? For
example, is it still customary for young men to get the approval from the father before dating his
daughter? How do you think the father is responding? How do you know it’s time to go?
Compare the painting by Edmonds to Gerard ter Borch the Younger’s The Suitor’s Visit. How
are the paintings similar? How are they different?
GENRE
EDWARD HOPPER (1882-1967)
NEW YORK OFFICE, 1962
Oil on canvas!
ARTWORK
Framed by rectangular pillars, a large, square window offers a view into a vast workspace. The
office is on the first floor of a corner building. To the left, a quiet alley recedes in a blue shadow.
The building on the opposite side of the alley has yellow and green window shades on the first
and second floors respectively. The sidewalk in front of the office is also uninhabited, while the
viewer’s perspective seems to be from the street.
In the office, a solitary woman in a blue dress stands behind a desk and telephone, opening a
letter. Light falls across the blue wall to her right. Several indistinct figures are visible near a
door in the background. The architecture of the city seems to both overwhelm and draw
attention to the figure, paused in a moment of daily life.
ART HISTORY
An American icon, Edward Hopper forged his own style reflecting many influences. Throughout
his career, he shared with his teacher Robert Henri a fascination with the urban scene and a
dedication to American realism. While many American painters painted scenes familiar to them
in the years between the World Wars, Hopper continued to paint in a realistic style beyond this
time period, as abstract styles began to dominate the art world. At the same time, Hopper’s
reduction of scenes, such as New York Office, to simple geometric forms and stark planes of
light and shadow are evocative of popular forms of abstraction, such as color field painting.
Hopper’s work is psychologically modern, exploring the lives of individuals in the city - in this
case the working woman of the sixties - and beyond. While the stillness, quiet, and dramatic
lighting that pervade his compositions have many precedents, Hopper’s works are often
considered in relation to film stills and the mood of Film Noir. Film sets have also been built in
response to his paintings.
THE ARTIST
Edward Hopper studied with the American Masters William Meritt Chase and Robert Henri. A
lifelong resident of New York, he also spent time in Paris and on the New England coast, all of
which he painted. Scenes such as New York Office reflected his daily travels around the city.
Hopper also had experience as a commercial illustrator of a business publication, and the office
was a common theme in his work. In many ways this painting is the quintessential Hopper – a
glamorous figure paused for a moment, separated from the viewer by a window, unaware of
being observed. A similar sense of detachment, austerity, and theatricality define many of
Hopper’s works.
CONNECTIONS
Many of Hopper’s compositions are reduced to the essential elements. Another Hopper
painting in the Museum’s collection is focused on the bow of a boat, Bow of the Beam Trawler
Widgeon, (1926). The painting features mechanical fishing equipment typical of Hopper’s
interest in modern American life. Hopper’s painting Nighthawks (Art Institute of Chicago, 1942)
presents a view from a city sidewalk through a window, similar to that in New York Office.
Another work that celebrates everyday life in the city is Tea Party (1922) by George Luks, who
was also trained as an illustrator.
!
!!
!
Edward Hopper. Bow of the Beam Trawler Widgeon, 1926, watercolor and graphite on paper; George
Luks, Tea Party, 1922, oil on canvas; Edward Hopper Nighthawks, 1942, AIC
DISCUSSION
What is going on in this picture? What is the woman doing? What does the letter say? Where
is this office located? How does the artist make the space appear to be three -dimensional?
The figures in the back are smaller, the lights become reduced in size as they recede. What
direction is the light coming from? Does this look like an office of today? Is there anything that
looks like it could be from a different time? The telephone looks old fashioned. What is our
point of view?
GENRE
WILLIAM SIDNEY MOUNT (1807 – 1868)
Any Fish Today?, 1857
Oil on canvas!
ARTWORK
A boy stands in the open doorway of a country house holding a string of fish. In the entry, we
can see a chair with a book on it, a bright floor covering, and several tools by the door. Happy
and healthy looking, the boy appears to be dressed for work in a jacket and cap. Perhaps he is
earning money by selling fish that he has enjoyed catching himself, perhaps he is about to
speak to the person who lives in the house. The work seems to celebrate the values of living in
harmony with the outdoors and hard work.
ART HISTORY
During the nineteenth century, the expanding United States was becoming ever more
cosmopolitan and industrialized. A growing number of citizens could afford to buy art for their
homes, and the market had expanded beyond portraits. Images of the majestic wilderness and
works that celebrated the values of ordinary Americans marked a national pride. Genre scenes
(or scenes of everyday life), such as Any Fish Today? were very popular. City dwellers often
enjoyed idealized scenes of nature and country life, from landscapes to images of simple rural
pleasures. Genre scenes were often imbued with a moralizing tone, industry in contrast to
idleness. Children, such as the young man depicted here, were often included representing a
certain innocence.
THE ARTIST
William Sydney Mount grew up in New York and became the foremost painter of
genre scenes (scenes of daily life of ordinary people) in the United States. Largely
self-educated as an artist, Mount went to work with his brother in a sign painting
business. He later achieved some success as a portrait artist and eventually was
able to make a living as a genre painter, gaining many followers. Living in rural
Stony Brook, New York, William knew well the country life that he painted.
CONNECTIONS
As opposed to the young man on the left selling fish in his free time, the boys on the right in
Mount’s The Truant Gamblers, 1835 (New York Historical Society) are gambling when they
should be in school. The farmer walking up seems poised to break up the fun. Scenes and
stories of young people’s lives were important in nineteenth century America. Some decades
after William painted Any Fish Today, Mark Twain wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and
Huckleberry Finn, in which the lives of boys growing up in rural America made for marvelous
stories.
Another painting in the Museum’s collection that depicts a young person working is John
George Brown’s Shine Mister, 1905. This boy looks happy and healthy, but the truth is that
shining shoes in a big city would have been a very difficult life for a child.
William Sidney Mount, Any Fish Today?, 1857, oil on canvas; William Sidney Mount, The Truant
Gamblers, 1835, oil on canvas; John George Brown, Shine Mister, 1905.
DISCUSSION
What is going on in this picture? What time of day do you think it is? What is the boy doing?
Have you ever sold anything? Whose house do you think this is? What do you think he is going
to say to them?
LANDSCAPE
GEORGE INNESS (1825 – 1894)
Medfield, 1877
Oil on canvas
!
ARTWORK
Inness moved to Medfield, Massachusetts in 1860 to escape the pressures of the art world in
New York City. The landscape featured here was painted during his second period in Medfield,
after he returned from Italy in 1875. Inness depicts a landscape that is calm and serene with
autumn colors and expressive brushwork, bathed in a mild afternoon sunlight. The mood is
melancholy and tranquil, perhaps reflecting his memories of Medfield as a peaceful place to live
and work. The painting represents a transitional phase in Inness’s work, in which the artist
combined detailed renderings of the natural world and the effects of light and color to evoke a
spiritual presence.
ART HISTORY
During the 19th-century, Americans were inspired by the romanticism of the American
landscape. Inspired by the vast areas of land that comprised the Louisiana Purchase of 1803,
Americans envisioned the land as unspoiled by civilization, embodying the presence of God and
Manifest Destiny. As territories expanded and populations increased, the perception of
landscape painting, in Europe and America, shifted from allegorical to geographical. Landscape
painting would henceforth derive its power from qualities inherent in nature, rather than from
literary, biblical, or mythological sources. For example, George Inness was influenced by three
major movements that embraced the power of nature: The Hudson River school, the Barbizon
School in France, and a movement known as Luminism. The Hudson River School was
comprised of painters who depicted landscapes in the Hudson River Valley, including the
Catskill, Adirondack, and White Mountains. In Europe, the Barbizon school embraced the native
landscape of France, such as the Forest of Fountainbleu. Luminism was an American
landscape style that emphasized the effects of light, often portraying the landscape as reflecting
spiritual presence. As a whole, landscape painting during the 19th-century had an empirical
focus, with the visual splendors of nature serving as the catalyst for lofty conceptions of the
natural world.
ARTIST
George Inness was born in Newburgh, New York to John William Inness, a farmer, and his wife,
Clarissa Baldwin. Inness's family moved to New Jersey when he was about the age of five.
During his early training, he studied for several months with an itinerant painter, John Jesse
Barker, and in his teens he worked as a map engraver in New York City. In 1851, Inness
traveled to Europe where he spent fifteen months in Rome, and studied the landscape paintings
of French artists Claude Lorrain and Nicolas Poussin. He also met the
painter William Page who mostly likely introduced him to the theology of
Emanuel Swedenborg. Inness moved to Medfield in 1860 with the
intention of finding a better market for his Barbizon style paintings. In
1870, Inness went to Rome with the intention of staying there
permanently, but later decided to return to Medfield in 1875. Inness’s
work of the 1880s reveals his interest in Swedenborgian theology, the
belief that the spiritual world is present in nature.
CONNECTIONS
George Inness painted during a time that encompassed a period of westward expansion, in
which the United States expanded its territories to the west of the Mississippi river. Due to this
movement westward, expeditions were arranged to explore new territories, and artists drew their
inspiration from them. Subsequently, landscape paintings would address themes of Manifest
Destiny, spirituality, Transcendentalism, and scientific discoveries.
Thomas Cole, for example, was a leading artist of the Hudson River School who painted “The
Course of Empire, which depicted civilization through various stages of growth and destruction.
David Thoreau, the author of Walden, wrote of his experiences in the woods, capturing the
experience of man’s relationship to nature:
"Our village life would stagnate if it were not for the unexplored forests and meadows which
surround it." […] "We need the tonic of wildness, — to wade sometimes in marshes where the
bittern and the meadow-hen [American coot] lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe; to smell
the whispering sedge where only some wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest, and the
mink crawls with its belly close to the ground."
Thomas Cole, Course of Empire (Destruction), 1836, oil on canvas; Timothy O’Sullivan,
Shoshone Falls, Snake River, Idaho, View Across the Top of the Falls, 1874, albumen print;
John James Audubon, Black-bellied Darter, engraving, etching, aquatint, and watercolor.
Timothy O’Sullivan was a 19th - century photographer who was employed by Mathew Brady, the
famous Civil War photographer. After the war, O’Sullivan was the official photographer of the
U.S. Geological Exploration of the 14th Parallel and took photographs of the West to attract
settlers. John James Audubon was an avid bird watcher and naturalist who documented birds of
North America.
DISCUSSION
Medfield is a painting about a specific place, but also represents an ideal depiction of a
landscape that transcends time and place. How is the scene ideal or idealized? Could you find
an area like this to paint around Montgomery? What time of day do you think it is? What season
do you think it is?
LANDSCAPE
MARSDEN HARTLEY (1877 – 1943)
Earth Warming, Mexico
1932
Oil on paperboard
!
ARTWORK
Marsden Hartley received a Guggenheim Foundation grant in 1931 and a year later traveled to
Mexico where he painted Earth Warming, Mexico. The painting features three large red
mountain-like shapes arranged in a triangular format with dark contour lines. In the distance,
pink and blue mountains are positioned horizontally from left to right just beyond the horizon and
large billowing forms densely populate a light blue sky. In the foreground, a loose application of
green and white pigment, faintly resembling sparse areas of vegetation, is surrounded by an
intense saturation of yellow and orange pigment that reflects the intense heat of the midday sun.
The strong hues and bold application of paint embody characteristics derived from several major
artistic influences. The stark black outlines recall the two-dimensional designs of Bavarian Folk
Art, the color mirrors the intense emotionality and expressiveness of the Fauve painters, and the
biomorphic rendering of mountains and clouds points to the spiritual characteristics of Der Bleu
Reiter, and American Transcendental Philosophy.
ART HISTORY
At the turn of the 20th century, modern art movements profoundly changed the way artists
interpreted the world. In Paris, Picasso and the Cubists deconstructed visual phenomena and
Matisse and the Fauves substituted vibrant colors for literal depictions of the natural world. In
Munich, Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) was formed in 1911 and was led by Wassily
Kandinsky and Franz Marc who emphasized abstract shapes, prismatic colors and spirituality.
America-artists were likewise influenced by this new wave of modernism. In the first decade of
the 20th century, the photographer Alfred Stieglitz opened his famous gallery “291,” which
exhibited modern European paintings, African art, and work by American modernists Marsden
Hartley, Arthur Dove, and Georgia O’Keeffe. In 1913, the Armory Show, an international
exhibition of modern art, introduced modernism on a much broader scale, featuring works by
European modernists, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, and Paul Cezanne, as well as works by
American artists, such as Robert Henri, John Sloan and Leon Kroll.
ARTIST
Marsden Hartley was born in Lewiston, Maine on January 4, 1877. Hartley began his art training
at the Cleveland Institute of Art and later moved to New York to study at the Chase School of Art
with William Merritt Chase, a well-respected painter and teacher. Hartley was inspired by the
work of Albert Pinkham Ryder and the transcendentalist ideas embodied in the writings of David
Thoreau and Walt Whitman. In 1913 Hartley traveled to Paris and became
acquainted with Gertrude Stein and her circle of artists, which included
Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. After Paris, he traveled to Germany and
befriended Kandinsky and Franz Marc. In terms of his own artistic
development, his work was greatly influenced by German Expressionism,
Bavarian Folk Art, and the mysticism of American transcendental
philosophy. When he returned to United States, Hartley traveled throughout
the country, including California, New Mexico, and Massachusetts, and
returned to his hometown in Maine in 1937. At this time, he became a strong
proponent of regionalism, a movement during the 1930s that celebrated local communities
throughout the United States.
CONNECTIONS
Henri Matisse, the leader of the Fauve movement, used color in a way that added emotional
intensity to traditional subject matter, such as nudes, still life, and interior scenes. Matisse’s
employment of the green stripe in his portrait of Madame Matisse was in direct response to
conservative critics, who found “The Woman with a Hat” exhibited at the Salon d’Automne more
appropriate for savages than civilized people. Franz Marc, who participated in the first exhibition
of Der Bleu Reiter, imbued his cubist inspired animal paintings with color filled with emotional
and spiritual meaning. Wassily Kandinsky was a Russian artist who settled in Munich and taught
at the Bauhaus School of Art and Architecture. He explored the meaning of abstraction as form
that possessed inner beauty and spirituality:
“Form, in the narrow sense, is nothing but the separating line between surfaces of colour.
That is its outer meaning. But it has also an inner meaning, of varying intensity, [Footnote: It
is never literally true that any form is meaningless and "says nothing." Every form in the
world says something. But its message often fails to reach us, and even if it does, full
understanding is often withheld from us.] and, properly speaking, FORM IS THE
OUTWARD EXPRESSION OF THIS INNER MEANING. To use once more the metaphor of
the piano—the artist is the hand which, by playing on this or that key (i.e., form), affects the
human soul in this or that way. SO IT IS EVIDENT THAT FORM-HARMONY MUST REST
ONLY ON A CORRESPONDING VIBRATION OF THE HUMAN SOUL; AND THIS IS A
SECOND GUIDING PRINCIPLE OF THE INNER NEED.” - Kandinsky, Concerning the
Spiritual in Art
Henri Matisse, The Green Stripe, oil on canvas, 1905; Franz Marc, Rehe im Walde (II), oil on
canvas, 1914; Wassily Kandinsky, Composition IV, oil on canvas, 1911.
DISCUSSION
Do you think the air in this location is warm or cool? How has the artist used his imagination, or
how does the painting look different from the real world?
LANDSCAPE
THOMAS MORAN (1837– 1926)
Dusk Wings, 1860
Oil on canvas!
ARTWORK
At the close of day, a single figure strolls toward a distant sunset. The “dusk wings” or rays of
the sun illuminate the sky, as they stream through the clouds. This setting sun catches one of
the trees in the background and illuminates the flora and rock formations in the foreground and
near distance. Moran rendered the plants and flowers of the wilderness in meticulous detail in
this ideal landscape, most likely derived from an area of rural Pennsylvania. A botanist (plant
scientist) can actually identify most of the plants in this painting, as they are so detailed.
ART HISTORY
An interest in the transcendent qualities of nature was popularized by the art and literature of
the 19th century. The sense that the divine could be experienced in nature had held importance
for Native Americans. Later, influenced by European romantics, mainstream American society
eventually embraced the search for signs of God manifest in nature. The tiny figure walking into
the distance, dwarfed by the nature that surrounds him, can be understood to convey the
insignificant role that mankind plays in the great expanses of the universe.
As in Europe, the growing appreciation for landscape paintings in the United States
corresponded to the onset of the industrial revolution, and the rapid development of urban
centers, particularly on the Eastern seaboard. What had begun as an agrarian society in the
18th-century was transformed, and as a result pastoral/wilderness areas receded. Additionally,
Americans took pride in the size and potential of the American continent, the varied beauty of
the land it encompassed, and travel to awe inspiring locations became a favorite pastime.
Beginning with the Hudson River school painters in the 1820s, American painters took the
American landscape as a primary subject.
THE ARTIST
Thomas Moran emigrated from England to the United States in 1844 with
his parents, who were seeking a better life. He was apprenticed to an
engraver in Philadelphia. Early in his artistic training, Moran was exposed
to the work of the great English landscape painter, J.M.W. Turner, who was
known for capturing the essence of the landscape through creative
composition and color. The accuracy of detail in Moran’s paintings reflects
his belief in the English critic John Ruskin’s advocacy of truth to nature.
Later in his career, Moran took part in the US geological expeditions to Yellowstone and the
Tetons. Like other artists and photographers, Moran played an important role in documenting
the American West prior to the migration of settlers from the East.
CONNECTIONS
Thomas Moran described his approach to painting natural scenery in a romantic way, “I place
no value upon literal transcripts from Nature. My general scope is not realistic: all my
tendencies are toward idealization. Of course, all art must come through Nature; but I believe a
place, as a place, has no value in itself for the artist only so far as it furnishes the material from
which to construct a picture.”
In addition to romantic concepts of the natural world in the wake of industrialization, and faster,
more efficient modes of travel, other social and political motives fostered love of the land and
landscape painting. The doctrine of Manifest Destiny asserted that it was a God given right for
Americans to claim the continent as their own. Americans also took pride in dramatic nature
sites such as Niagara Falls, which were tourist attractions in the same manner as ancient ruins
that could be found in Europe.
On the left is the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, 1872 (Smithsonian), one of the works
Moran painted to document the natural scenery of the American West. On the right is another
work in the MMFA collection by Moran, The Half Dome View From Moran Point, 1887, an
etching he made of a point in Yosemite that was named for him.
Thomas Moran, Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, 1872, oil on canvas; Thomas Moran, Dusk
Wings, 1860, oil on canvas; Thomas Moran, The Half Dome View From Moran Point, 1887,
etching.
DISCUSSION
Thomas Moran’s painting shows a man walking in the countryside as the sun is setting. Can
you describe what sounds the man might be hearing on his walk? What time of year to you think
it is? Does it look like the air is warm? Or cool? What do you see that makes you think so? Can
you make up a short story that tells why this man is walking alone in the country? Why did he
decide to take his walk? Is he going somewhere specific or just wandering? Describe his
feelings as he walks—is he happy, lonely, peaceful or afraid?
LANDSCAPE
THEODORE EARL BUTLER (1861 – 1936)
Clouds, Giverny, 1911
Oil on canvas
!
ARTWORK
Clouds, Giverny depicts a field in Giverny, France (famous for its impressionist inhabitants.)
Cumulus clouds that float in an azure sky dominate the landscape, the clouds accented by rose,
blue, and emerald. In the middle ground, a lone tree adorned by a range of colored leaves,
bends to the left. To the right, the tree casts a blue shadow at a slight angle, indicating the
direction of the sun on this summer day. The shadow lies across a fork of a dirt road emerging
from the lower right foreground. Several groups of trees and low-lying clouds are visible in the
distance, while flowers, indicated by dabs of color, blanket the painting. Blue shadows on the
lower dirt road suggest more trees beyond the edge of the canvas.
ART HISTORY
In sync with his famous (step) father-in-law, Claude Monet, Theodore Butler exhibited many
characteristics of impressionism in landscapes such as Clouds, Giverny. Impressionists often
painted familiar outdoor locations en plein air to capture changing weather conditions, using
dabs of pigment to create forms and indicate details. At the same time, Butler’s use of color in
Clouds, Giverny is expressive, the predominance of blue, for example, reflecting a unique vision
of the artist. Butler synthesized impressionism and expressive elements of the post–
impressionists. By the time this work was painted, he was exhibiting with artists such as Henri
Matisse, who is also regarded for his bright palette, departures from natural color, and use of
curving line.
THE ARTIST
A native of Ohio, Theodore Earl Butler (1860-1936) worked in France most of his life. After
studying at the Art Students League, the artist went to Paris, where he enrolled at the Académie
Julian. Like many other American painters, Butler was drawn to Giverny, a farming area in the
Loire Valley near Paris. The village was affordable in the early days of its popularity with artists
and attractive due to the marvelous Northern light of the region around the rivers.
For the sake of his ailing father, Butler returned to the United States briefly. He later settled in
Giverny with his first wife Suzanne, Monet’s stepdaughter. During the marriage, he painted
many scenes of his wife and children. After Suzanne’s untimely death, Butler returned to the
landscape subject, which he had favored earlier in his career. He spent time in the United
States during the First World War, becoming involved in the Society of Independent Artists.
After Suzanne’s sister, Marthe, had helped care for Butler’s children (her niece and nephew), he
ultimately married her.
CONNECTIONS
Monet also favored fields in Giverny and flowers as subjects. For example, look at his Field of
Yellow Irises at Giverny (1887, Musée Marmottan, Paris.) Like Butler, Monet used dabs of
bright paint to indicate flowers with an emphasis on the fluffy clouds above. As part of the
outreach portion of the 5th grade tour, we learned about another American impressionist painter
working in France around the same time as Butler. Mary Cassatt painted Francoise in Green,
Sewing (1908 - 1909). Although Cassatt’s interior subject is different from Butler’s, she also
used bright colors and loose brushstrokes. Another artist who incorporated expressive aspects
of Post-Impressionism into his paintings like Butler was the American impressionist, Childe
Hassam. Notice the predominance of red and the way that fruit is outlined in red in his highkeyed Fruit Still Life (1930).
Claude Monet, Field of Yellow Irises at Giverny, 1887, oil on canvas, Musée Marmotten, Paris;
Mary Cassatt, Francoise in Green, Sewing, 1908-1909, oil on canvas; Childe Hassam, Fruit Still
Life, 1930, oil on panel.
DISCUSSION
What is the focus of this painting? Where do you think the landscape is located? The
countryside? Where? What season is depicted in Clouds, Giverny? Spring because of the
flowers? Fall because of the red leaves on the tree? Or perhaps, summer? What is the weather
like? What time of day is it? Are there any colors that you might not expect to find in nature?
Blue shadows perhaps? Where is the road headed?
PORTRAIT
MARY CASSATT (1844-1926)
Françoise in Green, Sewing
1908-1909
Oil on canvas
!
ARTWORK
Mary Cassatt is known for her paintings of mothers and children, but in some of her later
artworks she focused on individual children engaged in a solitary activity. Françoise was most
likely a young girl from the village of Mesnil-Theribus, Oise near Cassatt’s home in France. In
this painting, a young girl, eight to twelve years old, is seated in a white-framed armchair, just
beyond an entryway to an adjacent parlor. The young girl is engaged in needlework, her head is
slightly bent as she focuses intently on plying the needle. She wears an elegant dress made of
taffeta or silk-flounced skirt and green and white stripes complemented by a white blouse with
ruffles. The girl is placed in the center of the painting and the chair behind her is turned slightly
to the left to echo the diagonal patterns of the floor design. A green curtain at the top left and a
white mantle at the top right are separated by a small ochre rectangular wall space with white
wood trim, which, together, forms a frame around her head.
ART HISTORY
Impressionism began as a French art movement that consisted of independent artists who
chose to rebel against the traditional French Academy. Led by Manet’s bold and direct painting
style and subject matter that abandoned academic subjects for everyday scenes, the
impressionists embraced a new wave of independence that was not bound by any one
individual style. Impressionists placed great value on the immediacy of the brushstroke and
preferred the color and light of plein air painting or painting outdoors. Mary Cassatt and Berthe
Morisot were members of the Impressionist group; two female artists whose work featured
women and children as their primary subject matter. A little over a decade following the first
Impressionist exhibition in 1874, the collector Paul Durand Ruel held his first exhibition of
Impressionist paintings in New York, and soon after, American artists and collectors would
embrace Impressionism as an important artistic development.
ARTIST
Mary Cassatt was an American painter and printmaker who spent most of her adult life in
France. She was a close friend of Edgar Degas and exhibited her work with the French
Impressionists.
Cassatt was born in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania. She was born into
an upper middle class family, which enabled her to travel throughout
Europe as part of her education and training. Cassatt studied at the
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and was a fellow student of
Thomas Eakins. Discouraged by the limitations for women at the
Academy, Cassatt decided to move to Paris, accompanied by her mother and other family
members. Although women were also forbidden at the time to attend the École des Beaux Arts,
Cassatt was able to study with Jean Léon Gérôme, a painter of Orientalist themes, and Thomas
Couture, winner of the Prix de Rome in 1837.
In 1867 Cassatt had her first painting accepted by the annual Paris Salon exhibition titled A
Mandolin Player and continued to submit work until the Franco Prussian War. Cassatt traveled
to Spain and was greatly influenced by the work of Velasquez, whose influence was recognized
earlier in the work of Manet. Edgar Degas invited Cassatt to participate in the Impressionist
exhibition, at which time her paintings departed from the traditional academic style, depicted
women and children using a light, airy, impressionistic palette.
CONNECTIONS
The term “Impressionism” was first coined by Louis Leroy in his review of the first Impressionist
Exhibition, which was derived from a painting by Monet titled “Impression Sunrise.” Leroy’s
review took the form of a dialogue that represented two skeptical viewpoints:
Impression I was certain of it. I was just telling myself that, since I was impressed, there had to
be some impression in it — and what freedom, what ease of workmanship! A preliminary
drawing for a wallpaper pattern is more finished than this seascape.
Impressionism, while emphasizing color and light, was more of a movement than a style, and
artists who were members often exhibited paintings that varied in technique and subject matter.
Degas was one artist and friend of Cassatt’s who shared her interest in the pastel medium and
printmaking. Although their subject matter differed, they both used the two mediums to expand
the boundaries of their art and impressionism as a whole. Below are a few representative
examples of works by Edgar Degas, Berthe Morisot, and Monetm artists who were important
members of the Impressionist group.
Edgar Degas, The Ballet Rehearsal, gouache and pastel, 1875; Berthe Morisot, In the Dining
Room, oil on canvas, 1875; Claude Monet, Impression Sunrise, oil on canvas, 1873.
DISCUSSION
Mary Cassatt never had children of her own because she felt that motherhood was incompatible
with her career as an artist. How did her life as a single woman influence her choice to paint
women and children? What is the girl in the painting doing? If a girl was dressed this way today,
where might she be going? What do children wear around the home?
PORTRAIT
ERASTUS SALISBURY FIELD (1805-1900)
Portrait of Bartlett Doten,
1833-1834
Oil on canvas
!
ARTWORK
Field painted this portrait of Bartlett Doten in 1833-1934. Bartlett was a merchant and
manufacturer in Sheffield, Massachusetts and Bridgeport, Connecticut. Born in 1807 in
Plymouth, Doten was a descendant of John Doty, a passenger on the Mayflower. Field depicts
Doten in formal attire, with special attention given to the jacket, vest, and hairstyle. His status as
a prosperous merchant is further supposed by the inclusion of a finely decorated shirt pin and
watch chain suspended from his vest. In contrast to the finely rendered details of his attire, Field
depicts Bartlett with irregular proportions, exaggerating the left ear and making the arms appear
shorter in relation to the body. The proportions of the body appear awkward, but the artist
succeeds in capturing the sitter’s character and status in society. Erastus also painted a portrait
of Bartlett’s wife Augusta, which is featured next to the Bartlett in the same museum gallery.
ART HISTORY
During the early 19th century, artists traveled to Europe to study art of the Old Masters, and
museums and art academies were established in America for the first time. Yet, in spite of these
developments, many artists were self-taught. Artists would often study from reproductions of
paintings or work as an apprentice for a local artist or sign painter. While some painters would
become members of prestigious academies like the National Academy of Design, other artists
established their own private portrait painting business for wealthy patrons. They were called
“itinerant painters” because they often traveled to different locations to reach as many patrons
as possible.
The prevalence of self-taught artists had a lot to do with more people moving from Europe to
America. The increase in population can also be attributed to growth in the economy, the
expansion of territory, and an expanding middle class.
ARTIST
Erastus Salisbury Field was a traveling portrait painter who worked in Massachusetts,
Connecticut, and New York. He painted primarily for wealthy patrons, depicting elaborate
clothing, jewelry and upholstery to reflect their status in society. Field’s parents encouraged him
to paint and he started his professional career by the mid 1820s. Erastus married Augusta
Mason in 1833 and the couple had four children. Field traveled to New York and studied with the
famous American artist, Samuel F. B. Morse, but was largely self-taught. By the mid 19th
century, Erastus took an interest in daguerreotypes, an early form of photography. He used
photographs to capture likenesses and some of his later portraits were painted photographs. In
1859, after his wife died, he moved with his daughter to Plumtrees, Massachusetts, where he
set up a studio and painted a variety of subjects, including history and religious paintings, as
well as panoramas.
CONNECTIONS
The profession of portrait painter was a relatively novel in 19th-century America. Jobs were
available in commercial art fields, like lithography, but fine art portraiture was not available to the
average person. Portraits were costly, so only members of the middle class could afford them.
As a result, artists became itinerant and traveled to different places to reach as many customers
as possible.
Itinerant painters were often self-taught artists who relied on unusual approaches to painting
portraits. Some employed the use of the “headless portrait,” which enabled artists to add a
different face to the same body or attire featured in other portraits. Below are examples of
paintings by self-taught painters, including a photograph of an installation on view in
ARTWORKS, the Museum’s hands-on gallery space.
Ammi Phillips, Lady in a Gold-colored Dress, 1835-1840; C.R. Parker, Mrs. Hines Holt, 1838, oil
on canvas; Faceless Portrait, ARTWORKS II Gallery, Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts.
DISCUSSION
Erastus Salisbury Field’s portrait of Bartlett Doten conveys him as a man of relative wealth.
What can you identify in the painting that reflects his status in society? Field pays close
attention to the facial features, but exaggerates the limbs and proportions of the body. Can you
identify the exaggerated features in this portrait?
What is going on in this painting? What do you see that makes you say that? (Facilitating a
discussion with open-ended questions can offer a range of responses and students will look
more critically at works of art when asked to find examples to support their ideas).
THE AMERICAN SCENE
IRVING KRIESBERG (1919-2009)
Portrait of Irene
1957
Oil on canvas
!
ARTWORK
While upon first glance this work might appear to be a medley of colors, a shoulder
length portrait emerges. The patchwork of bright colors in the center of the canvas forms
the outline of a female’s neck and face in Portrait of Irene. Her head is turned to the
side, her face viewed in profile. And the shape of her cranium is distinct. While the
areas of color suggest facial features, none is clear. Her dark hair is tied back in a
ponytail. Irene’s collared shirt, with its consistent white tone accented by patches of
subtle color, is arguably the most realistic element of this dreamlike painting. The
background is purely abstract, as if a color field painting.
ART HISTORY
For navigating the boundaries between the figurative and the abstract, Kriesberg is
often referred to as a “Figurative Expressionist.” He was one of the artists featured in
the landmark 1952 Museum of Modern Art exhibition, 15 American Painters. Others
featured in the show included artists such as Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock, whose
work was strictly dependent on formal elements such as color and line and devoid of
any representational imagery. Kriesberg’s choice to paint specific figures and creatures
stood in opposition to the aim of the Abstract Expressionists to address the universal.
Both Kriesberg’s smaller scale works and the Abstract Expressionist’s grand canvases
were highly expressive of the artists’ emotional and psychological states.
THE ARTIST
A Chicago Native, Irving Kriesberg (1919-2009) was educated at the School of the Art
Institute of Chicago and New York University. For much of his lifetime, the artist was a
resident of New York City where he taught at Columbia and nearby Yale. In addition to
creating paintings such as Portrait of Irene, he also sculpted and worked in pottery,
which he studied in Japan. He also spent time in Mexico and India; both countries have
abundant examples of traditional art forms as bright as Kriesberg’s work. In addition to
bold and expressive use of color, Kriesberg’s depictions of animals and humans were
defined by abstraction.
CONNECTIONS
Irving Kriesberg’s painting Portrait of Irene (1957) has much in common with the
Abstract Expressionist works on view across the gallery: Philip Guston’s Road (1959)
and Mark Rothko’s Untitled (1949, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.). Note
especially the visible brushstrokes in the contiguous areas of color that fill the Guston
and the Kriesberg. Interestingly, the background of Kriesberg’s painting almost seems
to echo the yellow, orange, green, and earthy bands of color that shimmer in the
Rothko. At the same time, Kriesberg’s work is markedly different from the others with its
inclusion of a figure. It is also more intimate in scale than Rothko’s expansive canvas.
(The Guston, closer in size to Kriesberg’s, was intended as a study for a larger
painting.) While critics may have overlooked Kriesberg in his day due to his ongoing
interest in the figure, his work has much in common with the early twentieth century
French group of painters labeled the Fauves (wild beasts in French). Artists of this
group such as Henri Matisse were scandalized in their lifetime for their bright and
unnatural use of color continued in Kriesberg’s painting. Do you find an affinity between
Henri Matisse’s Woman With a Hat (1905 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) and
Portrait of Irene?
Guston, Road, 1959. oil on paper mounted to Masonite; Mark Rothko, Untitled, 1949, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, DC; Henri Matisse, Woman
with a Hat, 1905, oil on canvas, SFMOMA.
DISCUSSION
This is a very abstract portrait - the colors used to depict Irene would likely only appear
in an artist’s imagination. What sort of mood do the bright colors of this painting
suggest? Lighthearted? What about the golden light behind Irene? A window perhaps?
Where do you imagine Irene to be? What do you think she looks like? What do you think
of her?
PORTRAIT
JOHN SINGER SARGENT (1856 – 1925)
Mrs. Louis E. Raphael
(Henriette Goldschmidt),
ca. 1906
Oil on canvas!
ARTWORK
Elegant and beautiful, Henriette, the wife of a London bank director, was painted by John Singer
Sargent over 100 years ago. Adorned in a shimmering dress and jewels, the lady rests her
elbow on a mantelpiece in an interior setting that is as stunning as she is. Light streams in from
an unseen window at the left illuminating Henriette and the room she finds herself in, Sargent’s
London studio. Expanding our view into the room, the mirror also offers a glimpse of Henriette’s
profile. The column on the mantelpiece recalls the enduring popularity of the classical style as
Henriette displays the latest fashion. The highlights and loose brushstrokes in the painting add
to the overall effect of opulence.
ART HISTORY
The interest in light and reflective surfaces along with the virtuoso brushwork reflect Sargent’s
interest in the Dutch and Spanish masters. At the same time, Henriette is a modern woman;
and we can note the influence of Sargent’s Impressionist friends in the loose brushstrokes and
highlights. Many associate the painter’s work with realism too. While some criticized Sargent
for being too daring, others found his work confined by precedent. His paintings not only fit in
with historic collections but looked fresh and new. And most of all it seems he was loved for
rendering his subjects as elegant and lifelike. Although the camera had been invented, the rich
and famous continued to have their likenesses recorded in Sargent’s portraits.
THE ARTIST
The most popular society portraitist of his day, John Singer Sargent lived his
life in Europe. After moving to Paris with his family, he studied under the
painter Carolus-Duran, who taught him the alla prima painting technique of weton-wet. When he painted Henriette, Sargent was living in London, where he
was a member of the Royal Academy of Arts. While he was loved for his
portraits of everyone from President Teddy Roosevelt to dancers, he painted many other
subjects, including the First World War from the battlefront.
CONNECTIONS
Around the turn of the twentieth century, portraits often commemorated important men and the
wives and daughters of wealthy families. Prior to World War I, business was booming and
many who had recently made their money were eager to make their names. John Singer
Sargent painted the newly rich and aristocrats alike, capturing the luxury of the era. On the left,
you can see The Wyndham Sisters, 1899 (Metropolitan Museum of Art), an example of a
portrait by Sargent of the daughters of a wealthy man in the Family’s London home. On the right
is a painting from the Museum’s collection of a woman artist from Alabama, Portrait of Anne
Goldthwaite, 1895. This portrait was painted by another female artist from Alabama, Clara
Weaver Parrish. The sitter’s jacket and hat tell us that she is ready to work.
John Singer Sargent, The Wyndham Sisters, oil on canvas, 1899; John Singer Sargent, Mrs.
Louis E. Raphael (Henriette Goldschmidt), ca. 1906, oil on canvas; Clara Weaver Parrish,
Portrait of Anne Goldthwaite, 1895, oil on canvas.
DISCUSSION
What is going on in this painting? What do you see that makes you say that? If you were
having your portrait painted, what would you wear? What would you include? Do you think
Henriette liked having her portrait painted?
=-[0;p97
SCULPTURE
CHARLIE LUCAS (1951 - )
Self-Portrait: When the Left Side of
the Brain Meets the Right Side of the
Brain
ca. 2006
Found objects, iron and steel
!
ARTWORK
Self-Portrait by Charlie Lucas bears some similarity to the artist’s alter ego, the “Tin Man.” The
artist presents himself as the embodiment of two identities, but inextricably linked in ways that
cannot be fully understood when viewed as two separate parts. In neurological terms, the left
brain is associated with logic and objectivity, and the right brain with intuition and subjectivity.
When the artist discovered himself as the “Tin Man,” the right side of his brain merged with the
left side, thus combining the physical and temporal side of his being with the potential,
transformative side. In a similar way, Self-Portrait is created with discarded materials like car
parts that previously lost their use value in terms of time (no purpose for using them), and
limited in terms of space (no place to put them). The artist repurposed the materials, and
transformed them into the artistic embodiment of his own self-portrait.
ART HISTORY
Self-taught art, Naïve art, or Outsider art are interchangeable terms that have been used to
describe artists who have no formal art training. The lack of formal training by self-taught artists
precipitated their relationship, or lack thereof, to the art world. In general, the art world is
comprised of museums and art galleries that collect and exhibit art to help legitimize and bring
recognition to artists. The work of self-taught artists is outside the “art world” because they do
not create art with the intention of exhibiting it in galleries or museums. In some cases, their art
is created in situ or made of materials that are immediately available in their native
surroundings. Furthermore, their work is often made of fragile materials and vulnerable to
decay. Since museums have begun to take an active interest in supporting self-taught artists,
the referent “self-taught” has remained, but the definition has expanded to the point where the
boundaries between self-taught artists and trained artists have blurred. Today, the formal
training of artists has little to no bearing on the quality of art and/or whether or not their art is
worthy of being collected or exhibited in museums and galleries.
ARTIST
Charlie Lucas was born in Birmingham, Alabama on October 12, 1951. He did not receive
formal training in art, but he developed a penchant for working with his
hands at a very young age. As a young man he made toys out of
scrap wood, metal and cloth for family and friends, and spent the first
30 years of his life working in the construction field. A major turning
point in his life occurred in 1984 when Lucas was disabled from a
back injury. During his recuperation, he experienced a revelation that
he should devote his life to creating art. He called himself the “Tin Man,” an alter ego that guided
his creative process. He began by welding metal sculptures out of found objects and installing
them in his yard and along a road nearby. His work captured the attention of two collectors,
Judge Mark Kennedy and William Arnett. By 1988 he began to participate in exhibitions in
Atlanta, New York, Chicago, New Orleans and other cities across the United States. SelfPortrait can be considered the personification of the “Tin Man.” As the artist stated, “Charlie
Lucas is the man that guides the Tin Man. If you cut us in half, you still wouldn’t be able to
understand it. It’s like, its like the Tin Man’s wrapped around me and plugging in the holes.”
CONNECTIONS
Self-taught artists, while normally considered outside the mainstream of official art circles, have
been reconsidered in terms of their value as artists and their work as art. For example, the
Watts Towers by Simon Rodia, the by-product of a singular artistic vision, were considered an
obstruction, and the city of Los Angeles made plans to demolish it. After the artist’s death, Actor
Nicholas King and Film Editor William Cartwright purchased the land and formed a committee
with the Los Angeles County Museum to preserve it. Anna Mary Robertson Moses, known as
Grandma Moses, did not begin painting until she was in her seventies. The collector Louis J.
Calder purchased a group of her paintings on view in a store window, and a year later her works
were featured in an exhibition at the Modern Museum of American Art. Bill Traylor is an
Alabama artist who spent the later years of his life drawing on the streets of Montgomery.
Traylor used materials that were immediately available to him, featuring whimsical figures and
animals in dynamic poses and juxtapositions that recall the cultural life of African Americans.
Simon Rodia, The Watts Towers. 1954-1955; Grandma Moses, Sugaring Off, oil on canvas,
1945; Bill Traylor, Man, Woman, ca. 1940-1942, watercolor and graphite on cardboard.
DISCUSSION
What do you think of the term “Self-taught Artist”? Does it influence how you see the artwork?
Charlie Lucas uses found materials to create his art. What does he use? How does his use of
materials differ from traditional art forms by formerly trained artists? Charlie Lucas defines his
self-portrait as a moment in time when the right brain merged with the left brain. What does the
artist mean by that and what can you find in the work that reflects these two aspects of the
brain? What is he holding?
SCULPTURE
EDMONIA LEWIS (ca. 1844 – 1907)
Hiawatha’s Marriage, 1868
Marble
!
ARTWORK
A youthful couple strides forward, holding hands, gazing into one another’s eyes. We can
identify their traditional Native American headdresses, jewelry, clothing, moccasins, and a
quiver of arrows. Upon closer examination, the title of the piece is inscribed on the base,
Hiawatha’s Marriage. This sculptural group is based upon Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem,
The Song of Hiawatha, published in 1855. It depicts the hero of the poem, Hiawatha, and his
bride Minnehaha. Their marriage sealed a pact of peace between Hiawatha’s tribe, the Ojibwa,
and Minnehaha’s tribe, the Dakota.
ART AND HISTORY
Eighteenth and nineteenth-century figurative marble sculpture is one of the defining artistic
legacies of ancient Greece and Rome. In this sense, the Marriage of Hiawatha is described as
a neoclassic work; that is, the material and the composition reflect the heritage of Greek and
Roman classicism. At the same time the work is romantic. The specificity of attributes that
identify the figures as Native American (therefore exotic), together with the emphasis on the
couple’s tender feelings for one another as they marry, convey the romantic style’s focus on
emotional depth and complexity. In the mid-19th century, combining the styles of the classical
world and romantic expression was typical in art.
THE ARTIST
The American sculptor Edmonia Lewis was the daughter of a Native American
mother and African American father. She was raised chiefly within her mother’s
tribe, and attended Oberlin College in Ohio, the first American college to admit
women. She was around twenty-one in 1865 when President Abraham Lincoln
freed the slaves in the South near the end of the Civil War. Lewis left Oberlin in
1863 to study sculpture in Boston, and in 1866 she established a studio in Rome, a
city famous for its ancient marble sculpture where the material was still readily
available. Many tourists visited her studio, and the eyes of the art world were on
this young African American artist.
CONNECTIONS
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote the romantic epic poem The Song of Hiawatha which
inspired many artists in the mid-19th century, and the works found great favor with the art-buying
public. Lewis created multiple figure groups and marble busts of the characters described by
Longfellow. Below are some of the verses surrounding Hiawatha’s wedding.
Onaway! Awake, beloved!
Thou the wild-flower of the forest!
Thou the wild-bird of the prairie!
Thou with eyes so soft and fawn-like!
If thou only lookest at me,
I am happy, I am happy,
As the lilies of the prairie,
When they feel the dew upon them!
ART CONNECTIONS
On the left is Forever Free, 1867 (Howard University) another figural group by Edmonia Lewis
celebrating the emancipation of the slaves. A woman kneels and prays in thanksgiving,
alongside a man as he raises the chains that once bound him.
Edmonia Lewis, Forever Free, 1867, marble; Edmonia Lewis, Hiawatha’s Marriage, 1868,
marble, Cappy Thompson, Lovers Sweet Embrace While Dream Chariot Awaits, 1997.
Another scene of romantic love in the MMFA’s collection is found on Cappy Thompson’s glass
vessel Lovers Sweet Embrace While Dream Chariot Awaits, 1997. A seated couple hugs and
kisses good night as their dog sleeps peacefully at their feet. In Lewis’s sculpture, Hiawatha is
depicted formally on his wedding day, but Cappy Thompson’s vessel shows a casual, everyday
scene. Lewis carved her work in marble with stone-working tools, while Thompson painted this
bright scene on the inside of a blown glass vessel.
DISCUSSION
This work represents an idealized, 19th-century interpretation of a marriage between two Native
Americans in the 15th century. Do you think that Lewis believed the clothing and accessories
she used were accurate for showing 15th century Native Americans? Would that have been
important to her? If so, why? If not, why not? How do you think an actual “marriage” between
Native Americans prior to the 19th century would have differed from what is shown here? Can
you find information on the marriage customs of the Native American tribes prior to when the
sculpture was made? What is the sculpture made of? How are Hiawatha and Minnehaha
interacting with one another? How do you think they feel about each other?
SCULPTURE
KAREN LAMONTE (1967 - )
Ojigi—Bowing, 2010
Cast glass
!
ARTWORK
This sculpture represents a human “figure,” however the person is not present, just the person’s
garment. It is life-size, and is cast in glass in three pieces. In this case, the garment shown is a
kimono, a traditional robe that is worn in Asia, particularly in Japan and in China.
There is no trace left of the person who originally modeled for this sculpture; only her posture,
showing a slight forward bow from the waist with arms relaxed at her sides. This stance conveys
many human characteristics, among them humility, grace, modesty, and elegance. The glass of
the kimono appears very tactile and soft, revealing all the wrinkles and creases of the fabric,
belying the hard, glossy sheen that characterizes a glass surface.
ART HISTORY
Fashion history and art history, particularly classical sculpture, directly inspired LaMonte's cast
glass sculpture. This is seen in her emulation of draped fabric and also in her removal of heads
and limbs that leaves her works resembling many Greek and Roman antiquities. Gian Lorenzo
Bernini's (Italian 1598-1680) marble Ecstasy of Saint Theresa, 1647-1652 from the Cornaro
Chapel in Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome is a specific inspiration in posture and draping.
LaMonte’s work also falls within the realm of twentieth-century Studio Glass, a movement that
began in the early 1960s when individual artists began to look for ways to produce glass art
outside of factory settings where it had been traditionally made by teams of craft persons.
ARTIST
Karen LaMonte grew up visiting world-class museums such as the Frick Collection and the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. It was in institutions such as these where she
encountered classical Greek and Roman statuary, 19th-century neoclassic marbles and Baroque
paintings, objects that later provided inspiration for her own art. Her inspirations were only part
of the equation, however; LaMonte also attended the Rhode Island School of Design to learn
the techniques necessary to create her complex works. There, LaMonte initially studied painting
and printmaking before turning to glass. In regard to finding a medium for her art, she says, "I
felt limited by painting so I started looking around for other things. When I discovered glass I
knew that was it. Working with glass is really challenging physically, which I really like because I
think I'm hyperactive."
CONNECTIONS
Clothing is often a reflection of the personality of the wearer, chosen specifically to project an
image, or, on the other hand, perhaps as a disguise or camouflage. LaMonte says, "Apparel
radiates its wearer's physicality like a discarded shell or an outermost layer of skin. It is our
second skin, our social skin." The different purposes of clothing can be seen in other objects in
the Museum’s collection. William Merritt Chase, Woman in a Chinese Robe, 1881, shows a
woman wearing a kimono as a costume. She is not Chinese, but she is a model dressed in the
kimono, most likely because the exotic, foreign appeal and coloration may have inspired the
artist. In George Luks, Tea Party, 1922, the heavy clothing the women are wearing
demonstrate practicality (they are dressed warmly to protect from cold), and the functional
clothing makes the women appear to blend into their environment. Their clothing makes them fit
in, not stand out. This sculpture was too large to be cast as one piece, so it was molded and
cast in three separate pieces. This upright figure, with its horizontal divisions, reminds one of
the way the columns on buildings used to be made in segments. Clarence Laughlin, The
Enigma, 1941, shows columns that would have been constructed in this manner. The posture of
the figure mimics that of the column and implies strength.
William Merritt Chase, Woman in Chinese Robe, 1881, oil on canvas; George Luks, Tea Party,
1922, oil on canvas; Charles Laughlin, The Enigma, 1941, gelatin silver print.
DISCUSSION
Before making this sculpture, LaMonte went to Japan and learned about the history of the
kimono, how they are made, and the meanings attached to how the kimono is worn. LaMonte
discovered that kimonos are very uncomfortable to wear, partly due to the padding of the
wearer's body to create a perfect spherical shape that obscures the natural curves and
particulars of the individual body. This is done to erase the individual in order to become purely
Japanese. Do we have clothing that we as Americans, or groups of Americans, wear to make
ourselves conform to or claim membership in the group? The figure here is bowing. In Eastern
cultures, this is often a form of greeting.
THE AMERICAN SCENE
OUTREACH PRESENTATION 2013-2014
Note to Presenters: The following is a loose “script.” It contains suggested questions
you can ask to begin a discussion. You are welcome to follow a different order of the art
presented and to develop other questions. The classroom presentation should last
approximately 30 to 40 minutes.
Introduction:
Hello, my name is ______________. I am here from the Montgomery Museum of Fine
Arts to talk to you about some of the works of art you might see when you come to visit
the museum soon. Who has been to the Museum? Do you remember any of the works
of art you saw there? What was your favorite part of the experience? When you come to
the Museum you will get to see many original works of art and make your own artwork.
You will even get to dance for a few minutes!
Let’s look at some pictures or reproductions of some of the paintings and sculptures you
may see when you visit the Museum. Well-known American artists created these works
of art. Some of them were created a long time ago and some more recently. Look very
closely to see how each artist has a different style or method of creating art that is
unique.
PORTRAIT
Françoise in Green, Sewing, 1908
Mary Cassatt
This type of painting, created 100 years ago by Mary Cassatt, is called a portrait. A
portrait is a painting of one or more individuals or people. Although wealthy
families often paid or commissioned artists to paint members of their families, this
young girl probably lived near the artist and was asked to model or sit for the artist so
Mary could paint her picture. What is Françoise doing in the picture?
Françoise is sewing in her portrait, probably because she enjoyed sewing. Many years
ago girls often learned how to sew by hand. What can you tell me about the clothes she
is wearing? How would the material of the dress feel if you could touch it? In art terms
the word texture is used to describe how things feel or appear to feel. Would anyone
wear a dress like this today? Where would someone wear a dress like this?
Imagine your portrait is going to be painted by a famous artist. Imagine that this portrait
will be seen by all of your family members and friends as well as people 100 years in
the future. What type of objects and clothing, and backgrounds would you want included
in your portrait? What would these objects say about you?
Notice all the objects in the painting that are either blue or green—can you name some
of them? How do these colors make you feel? They are called cool colors. What color
is the rug on the floor in the background? The bow in her hair? They are warm colors
and are very different than the green or blue colors. The artist used these contrasting
colors to add variety or interest to her composition.
Look at the light shining on part of Françoise’s face and one of her arms. Where do you
think the light is coming from? (window nearby? Light in the room?) Notice the
difference or contrast between the light on the left side of her face and arm and the
darker shadows on the opposite side.
Portrait of Irene, 1957
Irving Kriesberg
This reproduction of a painting in the museum is also a portrait. Who is it a portrait of?
What do you see that make you say that? How is it different from the portrait of
Françoise that we just saw? What more can we say about the differences? (less defined
interior, ages of girls, one only the face, etc.) The portrait of Françoise sewing is more
realistic in appearance than this portrait of a girl named Irene. In art terms, this is a
more abstract work of art.
LANDSCAPE
Medfield, 1877
George Inness
Landscapes are another category of paintings you will find at the Museum. What is a
landscape painting? A landscape is a painting that shows a scene from nature in which
the place or the land is the main subject.
Let’s look at this reproduction of a landscape painting. What do you see in the picture?
Where do you think the artist painted this scene? What makes you think so? How do
you think you would feel in this landscape scene?
The artist, George Inness, painted this landscape near Medfield, Massachusetts, where
he moved in 1860 to get away from the pressures of living in New York City.
During the 19th century, artists were inspired by American wilderness scenes. People
moved westward to build settlements following the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, and
artists like George Inness found religious and spiritual inspiration in nature. Notice how
Inness painted the sunlight and sky in this landscape, with the light reflected in the
water and light shining on the trees. What time of day do you think it is?
The line where the sky meets the land is called the horizon line. Where is the horizon
line in this landscape? Yes, in this picture the artist decided to put the horizon line near
the middle of the painting. Sometimes artists paint the horizon line up at the top of the
picture with more land showing, and sometimes they place it at the bottom of the
picture, with more sky showing.
Let's look at these drawings illustrating different placements of horizon lines. Also notice
in these different views of landscapes that the road seems to become narrower and
narrower in the distance as it goes back toward the horizon line. The place where the
sides of a road or river converge or come together on the horizon line is called the
vanishing point. This is a trick that artists use to give the illusion of depth in a
painting. In art terms this is called using one point perspective. Look again at the
George Inness landscape and notice how the pond becomes narrower as it nears the
vanishing point on the horizon line.
Clouds, Giverny, 1911
Theodore Earl Butler
Let's compare the landscape painted by George Inness with one painted by an artist
named Theodore Butler. How is this landscape different? (brighter colors, less details,
closer up view). What do you see that makes you say that? Where do you think this
landscape was painted? What kind and time of day do you think it is? What do you see
that makes you say that?
Where is the horizon line in this picture? Notice the road in the picture. It is wider at the
bottom of the painting (foreground). Then the road splits into 2 roads and each road
appears to become narrower as it moves into the middle ground of the painting, and
finally ends at one of two different vanishing points on the horizon line. This artist uses
the technique of perspective to give the illusion of depth in his painting. What do you
see in the background of this landscape picture?
GENRE SCENES
Holidays in the Country, The Cider Party, 1853
George Henry Durrie
Today we’ve looked at 2 types of paintings. Who can remember the types of paintings
we’ve talked about? (portraits & landscapes). Another type of painting at the Museum
is like this reproduction. It is a scene of everyday life, painted in a realistic style. In art
terms it is called a genre painting. A genre scene captures the day-to-day activities of
people in the home or community,
What is happening in this scene? Is this a painting of a country or city scene? Is this a
scene of everyday life that you would see today? When do you think it was painted?
What do you see that makes you say that?
Notice the people of different races in the picture. The artist, George Henry Durrie,
painted this in 1853, as a commentary about the major political debate of the early 19th
century: the question of slave holding in the South and the movement to abolish slavery.
Durrie used many symbols in his painting, including the animals. What do you think the
pig might represent? (a problem) The horse? The dog? The upside-down horseshoe
hanging on the door may also represent being out of luck; foretelling the upcoming Civil
War being fought over these issues.
Notice how the artist creates the illusion of depth with the diagonal line of the open
barn door, leading you to look into the dark interior of the barn.
New York Office, 1962
Edward Hopper
This reproduction of a painting at the Museum is also about everyday life, although the
artist’s main focus is on the big city and the architecture.
Describe the colors in this city scene. What time of day is it? What do you see that
makes you say that? How does the picture make you feel? What is happening in this
picture? What is the woman behind the desk doing? What do you think the letter she is
holding says? Although there are other people in the picture, does the woman in the
front of the office seem alone?
How many other people are in this picture? Does one of the people seem more
important than the others? Why? (larger, up front, etc.) Let’s look more closely at the
difference in size of the people. (measure with ruler or fingers) The woman holding a
letter is nearly twice as big as the 2 people in the space behind her, so she seems to be
closer to us. Also notice that the lights on the ceiling get smaller and smaller, suggesting
that they go back in space.
As we discussed previously, artists use all sorts of tricks to make a flat, twodimensional painting look like it has depth, or is three-dimensional. In New York
Office notice the diagonal lines heading down the sidewalk to the left of the office. It
looks like you could turn the corner and walk along the side of the building. If I put a
ruler on top of each diagonal line, you will see that the lines come together or converge
at a vanishing point in the picture (in this painting, the vanishing point is near the
woman). Looking at this second reproduction of New York Office, you can see more
clearly that the diagonal lines along the tops of the windows converge at a vanishing
point on the red line, which would be the horizon line. Although you don’t really see all
these lines in the real picture, they are implied lines. This technique of showing deep
space or three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface is known as
perspective.
SCULPTURE
Self-Portrait: When the Left Side of the Brain Meets the Right Side of the Brain,
2006
Charlie Lucas
We’ve looked at some examples of paintings you may see when you come to the
Museum (portraits, landscapes, and genre paintings). Paintings are 2-dimensional
works of art, such as the reproductions we’ve seen today. They have height and width.
You will also see sculptures when you visit the Museum. Sculptures have 3
dimensions, such as this box when opened: it has height, width, and depth
(demonstrate this with the folded box). Sculptures can be made in a variety of media,
such as clay, stone, and metal, and they can be modeled, carved, or assembled.
This is a picture of one of the sculptures you may see at the Museum. It is by a wellknown Alabama artist named Charlie Lucas. What does the sculpture look like? What is
the person holding? The name on the book says “Tinman”. What materials do you think
Charlie Lucas used to make his sculpture? (recycled car parts & metal) Charlie Lucas’s
decision to use discarded materials reflects the changes in our modern day society. Due
to advances in technology, we have produced large amounts of commercial goods like
cars and other machinery, leading to an excess of discarded materials. Rather than let
materials go to waste, this artist uses those materials to create art.
Charlie Lucas did not go to art school, but he has a strong belief that education can
greatly enhance your growth and development as a person. As he says, “education
expands you out.”
This sculpture is a self-portrait of the artist, whose nickname is “Tinman”, since he
often uses recycled metals, such as tin, to create his sculptures. How is this portrait
different from the portrait of Françoise that we saw earlier?
The sculpture by Charlie Lucas is an abstract work of art; however, you will also see
more realistic sculptures during your visit to the Museum.
Closing:
When you visit the Museum you will see some of the paintings (portraits, landscapes,
genre scenes) and sculptures I have shown you today, and you will create your own
self-portraits in the studios. You will also experience interactive works of art in the
ARTWORKS gallery. Remember not to touch any of the paintings or sculptures in the
Museum, as we want to protect the artwork so many other people can come and enjoy
the works of art in the future. We look forward to seeing you very soon at the Museum.
THE AMERICAN SCENE
ARTWORKS (2013-2014)
ARTWORKS: (35 minutes total time for this part of the tour)
Orientation Circle – (Demonstration on felt board)
You will be making a portrait of yourself in the studios today, so let's construct a face
on this felt board. First let's begin with the shape of a face. What is this shape? (Oval)
Some faces are shaped more like a square, some are more round, and some are even
heart-shaped. (show examples)
Let's put the eyes on the face. Where do the eyes go? If we drew a line across the
center of the face, the eyes would be located on that line.
Where are the eyebrows located? Let's make sure to leave enough space for the
eyelids between the top of the eyes and the eyebrows.
What about the nose? Where is it located? If we draw a line across the center of the
bottom half of the face, the tip of the nose would rest on that line. The top of the nose
starts between the eyes.
When we place the mouth, let's make sure to leave a space between the nose and the
upper lip. We also want to place the lower lip so that there is enough space below it for
the chin.
Now let's place the ears. Where are they located? The top of the ears line up with the
eyes and the bottom of the ears line up with the bottom of the nose.
Finally let's add the hair. Now our face is complete. Have you thought about the
relationship of the different parts of the human face before? You will be able to practice
drawing the proportions of your own face when you go into the studios today.
Birdland, 1988
Robin Van Lear
This is an interpretation of a famous painting, Summer Twilight, by Stuart Davis in the
Museum’s collection (show reproduction). What is the difference between the original
painting and this work of art? (2-D vs 3-D)
Stuart Davis was inspired by jazz music during his lifetime, and his paintings have been
compared to jazz music. What do you see in this work of art that corresponds to jazz
music?
Let’s take a moment to listen to music that Stuart Davis probably heard during the
1930’s. (Turn on the CD).
Recollections IV, 2008
Ed Tannenbaum
Now we’ll be going through an art installation created specifically for this location in the
Museum by the media artist, Ed Tannenbaum. This installation uses modern
technology, such as a camera, computer, projector, and special screen to create art.
Stuart Davis responded to jazz by using paint. Now you can respond to the music by
moving your body to create colors and patterns on the Tannenbaum screen. (Keep the
music playing as the students “dance” in front of the screen, moving groups of 7 at a
time through the exhibit, while the other students wait at the Davis exhibit).
Hopper in Perspective, 2005
Alabama Shakespeare Festival scene shop
This is another 3-D interpretation of a famous painting in the Museum’s collection: New
York Office by Edward Hopper. (Show the reproduction).
Tell me about what you see in this scene. Let’s think of a story that might go along with
this scene.
What you think is written in the letter the woman is holding?
Who is calling on the phone? What are they saying?
What does the woman do after she has read the letter and answered the phone? What
does the other worker in the office do?
(Call on the students as they raise their hands with ideas about the possible narrative
for the exhibit. Then pick 3 students to go into the office and act out the story, according
to their answers to the questions).
The American Scene
A Curriculum Tour for Fifth Grade Students – 2013 - 2014
Studio Lesson – Creating a Self-Portrait
Objectives:
• To teach the correct placement and proportions of facial features in drawing a
self-portrait.
• To include some of the basic elements of art – lines, shapes, colors, and
textures in creating a work of art.
• To use watercolor crayons to create a colorful self-portrait.
• To use light and dark values of colors, creating variety or contrast in a work of
art.
• To experiment with different techniques of using flat or two - dimensional
materials to create more three - dimensional parts of the face.
• To learn to use and care for art materials in an appropriate manner.
Materials:
• Large poster illustrating correct placement and proportions of the features on the
face.
• Mirrors
• 9" x 12" watercolor paper
• Oval laminated shapes to trace
• Yellow 1” x 6” strips of construction paper
• Pencils and erasers
• Scissors
• Glue sticks
• Watercolor crayons
• Different colored construction paper strips
• Watercolor brushes
• Small cups of water
• Paper towels
Procedure:
1. Tell the students that they will be painting a self-portrait. Ask them to write their names
on the bottom of the 9" x 12" sheet of watercolor paper.
2. Name the type of art materials they will use to make their portraits. They will learn how
to use these materials appropriately, as a part of the lesson.
3. Hold up an oval laminated shape and ask the students to name the shape. Have them
trace the shape on the watercolor paper. The shape should be centered on the paper.
4. Refer to the large poster of the face. Ask the students where the eyes are placed on
the face? (On a horizontal line halfway between the top of the head and bottom of the
chin).
5. Using a yellow strip of paper, demonstrate that the paper is the same length as the
shape they traced.
6. Guide the students in folding their yellow strips of paper in half. Show them how to line
up the bottom edge of the folded paper with the bottom of the face shape drawn on their
paper. Draw a very light line across the top edge of the strip of paper, and extend the
line out to the edges of the face shape. This is the “eye” line.
7. Use the narrow width of the strip as a guide for the approximate spacing between
the eyes. Ask the students to look in the mirror and hold the strip up to see if it is an
accurate measure of the distance between the eyes.
8. Mark the space between the eyes by lining up the narrow part of the strip so that it is
centered on the horizontal line that divides the face shape. Make a dot on either side of
the strip, to indicate the space between the eyes.
9. Use the width of the strip again to mark the left and right eye width, by placing dots
on either side of the strip (all along the horizontal center line).
10. Demonstrate drawing the parts of an eye. Use the marks made on the center
horizontal line to help with the size of the eyes. Begin with the curved bottom lid line,
and then draw the circular iris resting in the center of, and on the bottom lid. Add the
dark pupil and shade the iris. The curved top eye line will cover a part of the iris. An
additional curved line should be added just above each eye, to indicate the eyelid.
(Please note that faces are NOT symmetrical: one eye is larger, one side of the
nose larger, etc.)
11. Add eyebrows, using short sketchy lines. Look in the mirror to note the correct
spacing between the eyes and the eyebrows. Be sure to leave room for the eyelids.
12. Sketch the nose next. Refer to the large poster to note the correct placement of the
tip of the nose, halfway between the eyes and the bottom of the face. Have the
students fold their yellow construction paper strip in half again. Show them how to place
the bottom edge of the strip in line with the bottom of the face shape. Make another light
line just above the top of the folded strip. This is the “nose” line (where the bottom of
the nose ends).
13. Demonstrate how to draw the nose. Start with 2 very light curved lines on either side
of the eyes. Use your finger to blend or shade these lines, indicating the shadows on
either side of the upper nose. For the bottom of the nose, draw a semi-circle touching
the nose line that was marked on the face earlier. Add the curved parts of the nose on
each side of this semi-circle. The width of the nose at the bottom should
approximate the space between the eyes. Add the indentations for the nostrils, and
shade them in with the pencil.
14. Have the students look in the mirror to determine how much space should be used
for the chin. Make a curved line to indicate the chin. (Demonstrate this)
15. For the mouth, draw the curved mid-line (where the upper and lower lips meet) first.
Next add the bottom lip, and then the top lip. Note that the width of the mouth usually
lines up with the pupils of the eyes. (Demonstrate this)
16. Show them how to add ears on either side of the face, lining up the top of the ears
with the eyebrows and the bottom of the ears with the bottom of the nose.
17. Have the students sketch in the neck, making it connect near the bottom of the
ears. (Demonstrate this)
18. Ask them to use the watercolors to color their features and face. The hair will be
added later. They should also lightly color the background. Demonstrate how to color
quickly and lightly, explaining that water will help spread the colors around and fill in the
white spaces. Any color can be used to paint their portrait, since these works of art can
be abstract rather than realistic.
19. Show how to use a small amount of water to spread the color on their paper. They
should paint everything, using a small amount of water to spread the watercolor
crayons.
20. To complete the self-portraits, show the students how to take strips of colored
construction paper and fold, twist or cut the paper to make it more dimensional before
gluing the strips down for “hair”.
21. Ask the students to help clean up their space before leaving the room for the next
part of the tour.
THE AMERICAN SCENE
VOCABULARY TERMS
Abstract – Art derived from realism but deviating in appearance; maintaining the essentials of
shape, line, color, and texture relating to the subject.
Abstract expressionism – An American movement in the 1940s and 1950s that emphasized
feelings and emotions; often called “action painting” because many artists used slashing
brushstrokes and dripped, poured, or spattered paint on canvas.
Aesthetics – A philosophy dealing with the nature and expression of beauty, as in the fine arts.
Analogous – Three or more colors that are closely related because they contain a common hue
and are adjacent on the color wheel. Blue, green-blue, and green are analogous colors.
Analogous colors may be used as a color scheme.
Art criticism – Art processes and skills involved in studying, understanding, and judging a work
of art; the four formal steps involve description, analysis, interpretation, and judgment.
Atmospheric perspective – Creating the illusion of distance on a flat surface by simulating the
effects of light and air on an object; for example, a bright object appears closer to the viewer
than a dull object. (Also called aerial perspective.)
Background – The part of the picture plane appearing to be farthest from the viewer.
Balance – A design principle dealing with the appearance of stability or the equalization of
elements in a work of art; a balanced work of art seems to have equal visual weight or interest in
all areas. Balance may be symmetrical, asymmetrical, or radical.
Coil method – A process of rolling long pieces of clay and using them to form the sides of
bowls, containers, or objects.
Collage – A work of art where various materials, such as bits of paper, fabric, photographs, and
found objects, are arranged and glued to a flat surface.
Collagraph –The print resulting from printing a relief collage.
Complementary colors – Colors directly opposite each other on the color wheel. Red and
green, blue and orange, and yellow and purple are complementary colors. They make a neutral
result when mixed.
Composition – The organization of the elements of art and principles of design in creating a
work of art.
Contrast – The use of opposing elements, such as color forms or lines, to produce different
effects in a work of art.
Cool colors – Blues, greens, and violets. These colors suggest coolness and appear to recede
from the viewer.
Critique – A critical review or commentary dealing with a literary or artistic work.
Design – The organization of the art elements and principles into a plan. (Also called
composition.)
Digital media – The use of technology to capture images, sounds, and effects in the creative
process.
Elements of art – The “visual tools” artists use to create works of art. These include form,
shape, line, texture, color, space, and value.
Form – A shape having three dimensions—height, width, and depth.
Shape – An area defined by line or color.
Line – The path made by a moving point that can vary in width, direction, and length.
Texture – The actual roughness or smoothness of a surface or the illusion thereof.
Color – The hue, value, and intensity of an object as seen by the human eye.
Space – The area between, around, above, below, or within objects.
Value – The lightness or darkness of a color. (See Shade and Tint.)
Foreground – The parts of an artwork that appear closest to the viewer.
Found object – Everyday objects such as cups, keys, chains, buttons, lids, and scraps that can
be composed to create a work of art such as an assemblage, a collage, a stabile, a mobile, or a
sculpture.
Genre subjects – Depiction of everyday life scenes.
Grotesque – A relief decorating Gothic architecture such as gargoyles and sculptures.
Intermediate (tertiary) colors – Colors made by mixing equal parts of a primary and secondary
color (red-orange, yellow-orange, blue-green, blue-violet, violet-red).
Linear perspective – A technique of creating the illusion of space on a two-dimensional
surface using vanishing points and lines.
Medium – Material applied in creating a work of art, such as a pencil, paint, wood, ink, metal,
clay, or food.
Middle ground – Area appearing between the foreground and the background.
Mixed-media – A work of art using more than one medium.
Mobile – A suspended construction moving about in space, creating variations of shapes,
spaces, and shadows.
Monochromatic color – One color used in varied values and intensities.
Monoprint – Printing process that produces one unique copy of the same design that cannot be
printed more than once.
Mosaic – Artwork made by adhering small pieces of stone, ceramic tile, or other materials to a
background.
Multimedia – Referring to various media such as a camera, television, video, tape recorder,
CDROM, computer, or slide projector.
Negative space or shape – The space surrounding shapes or solid forms in a work of art.
Neutral color – Black, brown, gray, and white.
Portfolio – Samples of an artist’s work assembled for review.
Positive space or shape – Objects in a work of art that are not the background or the space
around them.
Primary colors – Red, yellow, and blue.
Principles of design – Guidelines artists use to create works of art and control how viewers
react to these works; the principles of design are balance, repetition or rhythm, unity or
harmony, movement, emphasis, variety, and proportion.
Balance – Arranging visual elements in a work of art equally; three types of balance are
formal (symmetrical), informal (asymmetrical), and radial.
Repetition or rhythm – Repeating lines, shapes, colors, or patterns.
Unity or harmony – The oneness or wholeness of a work of art.
Movement – The arrangement of elements in an artwork organized to create a sense of
motion.
Emphasis – Accent, stress, or importance of a part of an artwork.
Variety – Principles of design concerned with difference or contrast.
Proportion – The placement or ratio of one part of an artwork to another part or to the
whole.
Printmaking – Producing multiple copies of an original work of art from blocks or plates.
Relief – A sculptural form such as a frieze that is raised from the surface.
Resist – Method where wax or crayon is used to cover surface areas the artist does not want to
be affected by paint or dye.
Rubbings – A technique of transferring the textural quality of a surface to paper.
Secondary colors – Orange, green, and violet.
Shade – A dark value of a hue made by adding black to the color or its complement; opposite of
tint.
Stabile – A metal sculpture, usually abstract, with no mobile parts.
Style – Refers to the artist’s unique manner of expression.
Technique – The style or manner in which the artist uses media.
Tessellation – A mosaic pattern made by interlocking repetitive shapes to form a work of art.
Tint – A tone of color made by adding white to a basic hue.
Vanishing point – The point or points where all parallel lines appear to converge.
THE AMERICAN SCENE
CONTENT STANDARDS
Fifth Grade Visual Arts Standards
(Numbers refer to specific content standards)
Produce
Students will:
1. Utilize the elements of art and principles of design and the structures of art to
communicate personal ideas.
Examples #1 – Students will use mirrors, pencils, oil pastels, colored and patterned
paper to create colorful self-portraits.
Example #2 – Students will learn about the correct placement and proportions of
facial features.
2. Apply variety and unity in the production of two and three-dimensional works of art.
Example: Students will make their self-portrait paintings appear more threedimensional by folding, cutting and twisting construction paper.
Respond
3. Explain the elements of art and principles of design, including variety and unity in a
work of art.
Example: Students will respond to inquiry-based questions and Visual Thinking
Strategies when interpreting works of art, including the elements of art and principles
of design.
4. Critique personal works of art orally or in writing according to specified criteria,
including elements of art, principles of design, technical skill, and creativity.
Example: Students will respond to inquiry-based questions and Visual Thinking
Strategies, such as, “What’s going on in this work of art?” to encourage critical
thinking and responses to art.
Understand
5. Identify societal values, beliefs, and everyday experiences through works of art.
Example: Students will discuss the painting by George Henry Durrie, titled, Holidays
in the Country, The Cider Party to understand American society a decade before the
Civil War.
6. Describe works of art according to the style of various cultures, times, and places.
Example: Culture: Edmonia Lewis, Marriage of Hiawatha; Time: Erastus Salisbury
Field, Portrait of Bartlett Doten; Place: George Inness, Medfield.
Describe ways in which the subject matter of other disciplines is interrelated with
the visual arts.
Social Studies: George Henry Durrie, Holidays in the Country, The Cider Party
and the events prior to the Civil War.
Language Arts: 5th grade literature for further study: My Side of the Mountain by
Jean Craighead George, and Writing a Character Sketch.
7. Associate a particular artistic style with an individual artist.
Examples: Thomas Moran, Hudson River School; Mary Cassatt, American
Impressionism, George Inness, Luminism, Edmonia Lewis, Neo Classicism.
Fifth Grade English
Oral and Visual Communication
12. Demonstrate eye contact, articulation, and appropriate voice intonation with
expository presentations. Use dramatizations with oral persuasive presentations.
Use figurative language found in literature.
Example: In ARTWORKS, the Museum’s interactive gallery space, students will use
gesture, movement, and role-playing to respond to installations (Hopper in Perspective,
Color Me in Motion, Tannenbaum Interactive Screen).
13. Apply strategies of a skillful listener, including maintaining eye contact, attending to
the listening task, and assigning meaning to the message.
Example: Docents will lead facilitated discussions about works of art using inquirybased questions and Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) to promote oral communication
and expression. Docents will paraphrase and link student responses to foster collective
participation and mutual cooperation.
Fifth Grade Math
Geometry
8. Identify regular polygons and congruent polygons. Identifying angles as right, obtuse,
acute, or straight. Classifying triangles as equilateral, isosceles, or scalene. Identifying
figures that have rotational symmetry. Predicting the results of a flip (reflection), turn
(rotation), or slide (translation).
Example: In Stuart Davis’s, Summer Twilight, the artist emphasizes the two-dimensional
surface of the canvas to create a combination of angles, polygons, and two-side cubes.
Fifth Grade Social Studies
10. Describe political, social, and economic events between 1803 and 1860 that led to
the expansion of the territory of the United States. (e.g. Louisiana Purchase, Indian
Removal Act, Texas-Mexican Wars, Mexican American War, Gold Rush of 1849).
Example: The Louisiana Purchase was a pivotal event that shaped the perception of
America as a vast land of opportunity. The tour will include discussions of Thomas
Moran’s Dusk Wings and (alternative) Frederic Church’s American Landscape, as an
unspoiled land of opportunity.
12. Identify causes of the Civil War from the northern and southern viewpoints. (e.g.
states’ rights, slave versus free states)
Example: Discuss Durrie’s Holidays in the Country, The Cider Party, and connection to
the “Free Soilers” and “Barn Burners.” Discuss their political positions and how they
related to causes of the Civil War.
13. Identify social, political, and economic changes that occurred during Reconstruction
(how women and African Americans were impacted; voting rights, education, etc.)
Example: Discuss Edmonia Lewis’s background as a woman of African American and
Native American descent, and her struggle to become a sculptor in a racially divided
society.