Out to Alberta – Education Kit

Transcription

Interpretive Guide & Hands-on Activities
The Alberta Foundation for the Arts
Travelling Exhibition Program
...out to Alberta
Think I’ll go out to Alberta
Weather’s good there in the fall...
from: Four Strong Winds
Music and lyrics by Ian Tyson
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The Alberta Foundation for the Arts Travelling Exhibition Program
The Interpretive Guide
The Art Gallery of Alberta is pleased to present your community with a selection from its Travelling
Exhibition Program. This is one of several exhibitions distributed by the Art Gallery of Alberta as part
of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts Travelling Exhibition Program. This Interpretive Guide has been
specifically designed to complement the exhibition you are now hosting. The suggested topics for
discussion and accompanying activities can act as a guide to increase your viewers’ enjoyment and to
assist you in developing programs to complement the exhibition. Questions and activities have been
included at both elementary and advanced levels for younger and older visitors.
At the Elementary School Level the Alberta Art Curriculum includes four components to provide
students with a variety of experiences. These are:
Reflection: Responses to visual forms in nature, designed objects and artworks
Depiction: Development of imagery based on notions of realism
Composition: Organization of images and their qualities in the creation of visual art
Expression: Use of art materials as a vehicle for expressing statements
The Secondary Level focuses on three major components of visual learning. These are:
Drawings: Examining the ways we record visual information and discoveries
Encounters: Meeting and responding to visual imagery
Composition: Analyzing the ways images are put together to create meaning
The activities in the Interpretive Guide address one or more of the above components and are
generally suited for adaptation to a range of grade levels. As well, this guide contains coloured images
of the artworks in the exhibition which can be used for review and discussion at any time. Please be
aware that copyright restrictions apply to unauthorized use or reproduction of artists’ images.
The Travelling Exhibition Program, funded by the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, is designed to bring
you closer to Alberta’s artists and collections. We welcome your comments and suggestions and invite
you to contact:
Shane Golby, Manager/Curator
Travelling Exhibition Program
Ph: 780.428.3830; Fax: 780.421.0479
Email: [email protected]
AFA Travelling Exhibition Program, Edmonton, AB. Ph: 780.428.3830 Fax: 780.421.0479
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Table of Contents
This package contains:
Curatorial Statement
List of Images
Visual Inventory
Artist Biographies/Statements
Talking Art
- Curriculum Connections
- The music of ...out to Alberta
- Music and Art: A survey
- Art History: Genre Painting
- Art History: Styles of Artistic Expression in Painting, Drawing, Photography
- Romanticism
- Realism
- Expressionism
- Modernism/Abstraction
- Photography
- Art Processes - Printmaking
- Watercolour
Visual Learning and Hands-On Activities
- Elements of Composition Tour
- Reading Pictures Tour
- Perusing Paintings: An Artful Scavenger Hunt
- Exhibition Related Art Projects
Glossary
Credits
The AFA and AGA
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Curatorial Statement
...out to Alberta
...lend your ears to music, open your eyes to
painting, and...stop thinking! Just ask yourself
whether the work has enabled you to ‘walk
about’ into a hitherto unknown world. If the
answer is yes, what more do you want?
Wassily Kandinsky
encapsulate an experience, or symbolize a
way of life. Together, the art works and music
lyrics which form this exhibition examine the
shared inspirations of artistic pursuits and
demonstrate how these reflections can
transport both the listener and viewer into
the ‘hitherto unknown worlds’ of Alberta and
influence how these worlds are seen.
Alberta: what’s in a name? What images does
this appellation conjure in the mind? Oil?
Cowboys? The Rocky Mountains or canola
fields? If asked, how would you describe this
province we live in and where do your
perceptions have their roots? Are these
reflections based on direct experience or
does their source lie elsewhere? Are our
views grounded in reality, or are they
imaginative constructs which, through the
telling, have become part of our collective
consciousness?
The arts have long been instrumental in
shaping our awareness of the world around
us. Whether based in reality or the
imagination, creative expressions in literature,
the performing arts, music, or the visual arts
have conveyed the past, articulated the
present, pointed towards the future and
informed perceptions of place and human
relationships.
The exhibition …out to Alberta considers this
influence of the arts as it has been expressed
through both the music and the visual arts of
Alberta. Featuring a selection of songs
produced by some of Alberta’s most notable
musical artists and visual art works drawn
from the collection of the Alberta Foundation
for the Arts, this exhibition demonstrates how
the lyrics of a song or an image hung on a
wall can create a mood, evoke a memory,
George Webber
Hutterite Boys, Southern Alberta, 1994
Silver gelatin print on paper
Collection of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts
As music is the poetry of sound, so is
painting the poetry of sight....
James McNeil Whistler
The exhibition ...out to Alberta was curated by Shane
Golby and organized by the Art Gallery of Alberta
for the Alberta Foundation for the Arts Travelling
Exhibition Program. The AFA Travelling Exhibition
Program is financially supported by the Alberta
Foundation for the Arts.
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List of Images
Radford Blackrider
Fancy Dancer, 1991
Acrylic on illustration board
22 1/16 inches x 17 inches
Collection of the Alberta Foundation
for the Arts
Wally Houn
Bullriders before final ride, 1976
7 3/8 inches x 9 1/4 inches
for the Arts
Michael Burns
Immigrants, 1990
Oil on masonite
17 15/16 inches x 23 13/16 inches
for the Arts
Dennis Lee
Grip, 2000
Acrylic on canvas
15 15/16 inches x 19 15/16 inches
for the Arts
Brian Dyson
Untitled (Musician and Dancer), 1977
Silver gelatin on paper
for the Arts
Terry Munro
Untitled, n.d.
for the Arts
Roland Gissing
Untitled, n.d.
Oil on canvas
12 inches x 16 inches
for the Arts
Paul Murasko
Stagecoach, 1988
Silver gelatin, handpainted on paper
for the Arts
Carmen Haakstad
It’s Mine, 1992
Graphite, pastel, pencil crayon on paper
for the Arts
Jacques Rioux
Dark House, Southern Alberta, 1995
for the Arts
Robert Hope
Bird Fence, 1982
Ink, watercolour on paper
for the Arts
Margaret Shelton
Untitled, Rosedale Mine, 1950
Linocut on paper
for the Arts
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List of Images
Leonard Simpson
Chinook, 1985
Gum bichromate on paper
for the Arts
Robert Van Schaik
Sweat Frames and Tipis, Kootenay Plains, 1986
Ektacolour on paper
for the Arts
Kristen Wagner
Bashaw Falling, 1998
Silver gelatin print on archival board
for the Arts
George Webber
for the Arts
George Webber
Seven Persons, Alberta 2001, 2001
Colour photograph on paper
for the Arts
John Will
Orange Thirty Eight, 1976
Lithograph on paper
for the Arts
Total Works: 18
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Visual Inventory
Radford Blackrider
Fancy Dancer, 1991
Acrylic on illustration board
Brian Dyson
Michael Burns
Immigrants, 1990
Oil on masonite
Roland Gissing
Untitled, n.d.
Oil on canvas
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Visual Inventory
Carmen Haakstad
It’s Mine, 1992
Graphite, pastel, pencil crayon on paper
Wally Houn
Bullriders before final ride, 1976
Robert Hope
Bird Fence, 1982
Dennis Lee
Grip, 2000
Acrylic on canvas
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Visual Inventory
Terry Munro
Untitled, n.d.
for the Arts
Jacques Rioux
Dark House, Southern Alberta, 1995
Paul Murasko
Stagecoach, 1988
Silver gelatin, handpainted on paper
Margaret Shelton
Untitled, Rosedale Mine, 1950
Linocut on paper
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Visual Inventory
Leonard Simpson
Chinook, 1985
Gum bichromate on paper
Kristen Wagner
Robert Van Schaik
Sweat Frames and Tipis, Kootenay Plains, 1986
Ektacolour on paper
George Webber
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Visual Inventory
George Webber
John Will
Orange Thirty Eight, 1976
Lithograph on paper
Total Number of Works = 18
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Visual Artist Biographies/Statements
Radford Blackrider
Radford Blackrider was born in Bassano, Alberta, in 1962. Radford’s mother and father were
full-blooded Blackfoot natives. His Indian name is ‘Sings about Everything’ and, besides his
artistic interests, Radford sings and performs as a Grass Dancer at Pow-Wows throughout
Canada and the United States.
Radford Blackrider is a self taught artist who commenced painting in grade 1 where he attended
Wheatland County Schools in the Arrowwood, Gleichen, Cluny and Strathmore districts. He also
attended Crowfoot Indian Day School on the Blackfoot Reserve.
His paintings have been shown and sold in Calgary and his works are in private collections
throughout Canada, the United States and overseas. Radford’s attention to the details in the
costumes worn by his figures comes from his learning and listening to stories told by elders and
by watching performers at ceremonies. Pictures taken at these events provide a record for
artists like Radford to preserve his heritage for the enjoyment of enthusiasts everywhere.
Michael Burns
Michael Burns was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1954. In 1965 he immigrated to Canada,
residing in Toronto with his mother and stepfather. At the age of 16 Michael left home to work on
a farm. While there he learned a great respect for the land and nature. After two years he left the
farm and for the following decade and a half he travelled extensively throughout Canada and the
United States. From 1973 to 1982 he lived in Canmore and then moved to Edmonton.
Michael remembers always having been a creative person and at an early age had dreams of
being an artist. This possibility and true desire of becoming an artist, however, was not realized
until early 1983. In 1983 he attended the University of Alberta, but after the first term became
disillusioned with formal education. Thereby he saw that the only path for him was through
self-education. His obsession, discipline, and dedication to his work became his only teacher
and painting has become his personal religion, a voyage of self-discovery, and his way of
interpreting society and the world around him.
Michael has exhibited his work both in Edmonton and throughout Alberta since 1986. His work is
in the corporate collections of AGT, Edmonton, and Esso Resources, Calgary, and in numerous
public and private collections throughout Canada, the United States, England and Poland.
Michael Burns - Artist Statement
Art is my lifestyle; a way of living.
I don’t paint to create something to sell. If the completed result after the process is
sellable, that is fine, but selling is not my main focus.
The process of painting allows me to watch myself develop. Every step from the minute
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decisions in colour, form and line are all part of the art. Technique may be developed to
describe what I want to say, but I don’t consciously develop a technique to improve the skies, or
to paint trees better. Technique is only a vehicle used to express the art.
I paint from my own visions within. I don’t like being categorized in art. I can never answer the
question “What do you paint? Are you an impressionist, expressionist, realist, etc....” I know
that my art is a form of realism combined with abstraction. If I knew how to describe my work in
words, I wouldn’t need to paint.
My art gives me a way of providing order to a very insane world. I realize that I live in a time of
spiritual bankruptcy. One of the purposes of selling my art is to relate my spiritual development.
Painting gives me values; reminds me to get back to honesty and the intuitive sense within; to
interpret what I believe.
Art for me gives reasons to look for something greater of myself, within myself. To use a quote
from a greater American painter and instructor, John Sloan, “I am like Picasso, just gnawing on
a bone.” I know this sounds like a philosophical cliche, but I use it to create a visual image of
what I am. Everyday I enter my studio, putter and play with my materials, looking for images that
relate to myself. My paint process has come to the point of worrying the paint into submission,
just in the way of a dog gnawing on a bone.
It seems ridiculous to me when persons attend University for a masters degree. To go to school
for 6 or 7 years and come out a master is impossible. Art is life, if you haven’t really lived life
your art cannot clearly express your own visions. A master is someone who has completed the
process of life. Years of University will enable a person to be fairly good in technique, but cannot
make them a master before their time. For 8 years I have been seriously painting full-time, and I
have not even scratched the surface of what paint is. The master for me comes after decades of
diligent work.
I have denied formal education. Long ago I decided to teach myself about art and painting. My
days are filled with reading, painting, and looking at art; observing everything around me;
consuming all of the visual input. The end result is to become master. In essence, I am the
traditional painter.
Brian Dyson
Brian Dyson makes his living as a freelance photographer and designer in Calgary. The majority
of his clients are non-profit cultural and social service organizations. With his partner he
operates a web site which offers editorial images of interest primarily to the travel industry.
Brian studied Visual Communications at Leeds College of Art, majoring in photography and
related design. He graduated in 1966. After leaving college he worked as assistant photographer
in a fairly large commercial photographic studio in London, and emigrated to Canada in 1968.
His media background and interest in art and social practice led to him founding Syntax Arts
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Society in 1980. Syntax was developed to provide a vehicle for cultural action which addresses
social issues in areas of economics, politics, law and social ethics, as well as aesthetics - its
activities do not exclude any of the spheres of social interaction which constitute culture in its
broadest sense.
Roland Gissing (1895-1967)
Roland Gissing was born in England and became a painter of Canadian mountains and foothills.
He was the son of an author and studied at George Watson’s College in Edinburgh, Scotland.
His love of American cowboy movies influenced his move to Canada in 1913, and for ten years
he worked as a ranch hand in Alberta, Montana, Nebraska, and Arizona. Painter C.W. Jefferys
in Calgary encouraged his art talent and Gissing settled near Cochrane at the fork of the Ghost
and Bow Rivers. In 1929 he had his first one-man show which was highly successful although
he had had little formal instruction. A studio fire in 1944 destroyed his oil paintings so he turned
to watercolor of the English school, painting in clear, soft tones. His main subjects were sunlit
mountains and rivers, scenes reproduced on calendars and cards, and he would often backpack
into the wilderness for weeks to get his subjects.
Carmen Haakstad (from Art of the Peace - article by Jody Farrell, Spring 2013)
...Haakstad’s emergence into the world of art began in high school, but really took off when he
entered the University of Minnesota-Deluth on a full hockey scholarship. He switched from a
general arts degree to Fine Arts, the heavy demands of his athletic commitment requiring him
to stay on an extra year. He graduated in 1979, the university’s first BFA to have completed the
degree by way of a hockey scholarship. The incongruous pairing of an artist and athlete, that
combination of deep reflection and full-out physical drive, was perhaps an early sign of what was
to come. The LaGlace native came back home and, shortly after an exhibition of his BFA works,
was made director-curator of Grande Prairie’s fledgling Prairie Art Gallery (PAG). Haakstd spent
the next seven years helping to establish and permanently house the PAG, now a highlyesteemed Class A gallery whose status allows for international exhibitions. More than two
decades of fund-raising for non-profit organizations followed. Today he is the vice president of
external relations for Evergreen Park, a multipurpose fairground and trade show complex in the
County of Grande Prairie.
Robert Hope
Robert Hope studied Fine Art at the Banff School of Fine Arts, the University of Calgary, and the
Alberta College of Art in Calgary. He has exhibited his work across Alberta, in Regina and
Vancouver. Robert Hope is a member of the Alberta Society of Artists and his artwork is in
numerous private collections in Canada, the U.S.A., England, and Australia.
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Wally Houn
Wally Houn was born as Quon Woy Tien in 1943 near Canton in Guandong Province, China. In
1953 he immigrated to Medicine Hat, Alberta, and lived with his grandfather Ben Quon, who was
the owner of a restaurant. Houn came to Canada with false identification papers in order to
support his family in China. When the Canadian government granted amnesty to illegal
immigrants in 1967 Houn was able to use his birth name but chose to remain Wally Houn.
Houn attended post-secondary education at Ryerson Polytechnic University in Toronto, Mount
Royal College in Calgary, and the University of Calgary. After graduation he taught English in
public schools in Swift Current, Nobleford, Edmonton, Hussar, and Strathmore until retiring in
1996.
Houn first became interested in photography as a junior high school student and developed it as
a hobby. In the late 1970s, when Houn was living and teaching in Hussar, he became interested
in documentary photography and began photographing people and places in Hussar. This work
was eventually exhibited in Calgary, Edmonton, and Saskatoon and led to more photography
work for the 75th anniversary of Alberta in 1980 and a national exhibition of the Hussar project.
Since then Houn has worked as an actor and is a member of the Alliance of Canadian Cinema,
Television and Radio Artists.
Dennis Lee
Dennis Lee graduated with a Graphic Art and Design Degree from the Ontario College of Art,
Toronto, in 1977. He received a Design Arts Certificate with a major in Graphic Arts from Grant
MacEwan Community College in Edmonton in 1980.
He has had exhibitions in Calgary, the United States and Europe and his work is in local and
national collections and the ARTBANK, Canada Council for the Arts.
Dennis Lee - Artist Statement
Photo-Realism allows a contemplation of the subject over the artwork as opposed to art that
doesn’t ‘represent’ anything other than the artwork itself. Photo-Realism changes the
conventional approaches to art and its subject. A captured moment in time, for me it has become
the champion of the overlooked, objects that were created with care by craftsmen but are now
neglected and tossed aside.
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Terry Munro
Terry Munro is a photographer based in Calgary, Alberta. From 1973 to 1983 he attended
numerous educational institutions in both the United States and Canada including the Banff
School of Fine Arts (Junior and Senior Diplomas in Visual Communications, 1975), the San
Francisco Arts Institute, University of California (Bachelor of Fine Arts, 1977), and Simon Fraser
University, Arts Faculty, Burnaby British Columbia, 1983.
Munro has been exhibiting his work since 1973 and has received numerous awards from the
Canada Council and Alberta Culture/Alberta Foundation for the Arts.
His work may be found in the collections of the San Francisco Art Institute, the Alberta
Foundation for the Arts, the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, Ottawa, the
National Gallery of Canada, and the Canada Council Art Bank, Ottawa, among others.
Paul Murasko
Paul Murasko is an Edmonton-based photographer. In his work cultural influences, timeless
light, space and common values are just a few of the vast variety of elements that may find
themselves incorporated into a piece.
Murasko’s works start with archival black and white photographs on double-weight fibre-based
paper. He then tones the paper with selenium, and uses oil paints specially made for colouring
photographs to bring the stills to life. Murasko’s interest in this technique developed many years
ago. As described by the artist:
My father was a photographer, and I’d seen him do a couple, but I’d also seen it in magazines
and thought, ‘That looks pretty neat.’ So I said to my dad, ‘how do you do that?’ and he threw me
an old set of paints from the ‘50s and I started to do it by trial and error.
In Murasko’s work colour allows him to punch up the features of the city that we usually take for
granted - “It’s more interesting, the fantasy and surrealism of it.” Painting also allows him to add
special effects elements that exist only in the artist’s mind.
Paul Murasko - Artist’s Statement
Photography allows me to be spontaneous with subject matter. I move within the moment.
Artistic manipulation, be it with paint, collage or other techniques gives me the creative freedom
to pass boundaries and interact with a personal exploration of rediscovery and perception.
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Jacques Rioux
Jacques Rioux was born in Sherbrooke, Quebec, in 1956 and moved to Calgary in 1979. Since
moving to Calgary he has worked as a photographer and photographer/multimedia producer and
exhibited his photographic works in a number of exhibitions since 1990. During this time he has
created two extensive photographic series: The Calgary Picture Project and Western Badlands.
In speaking of this second project Rioux has written:
I first discovered the Alberta Badlands in the spring of 1980, while travelling along the Red Deer
River in southern Alberta, Canada. Walking in this barren landscape I came upon some ancient
geological formations that seemed filled with mysteries. In reality, water, frost and winds have
helped shape and sculpt the dramatic terrain which forms the badlands. Yet, to the native people
of the west, the badlands are considered a sacred place, ‘home of spirits’. As a result, for the
past 2500 years, the North American Indians have been painting and etching their visions and
dreams in the soft sandstone cliffs of the badlands.
Since 1987, I have made photographs that attempt to reveal the mystical quality of this
landscape. I explored 4 areas where the badlands are found in Alberta, Canada. They are the
Horseshoe and the Horsethief canyons, near Drumheller; the Dinosaur Provincial Park (the
largest and most spectacular tract of badlands in Canada), and the Writing-on-Stone Provincial
Park and the Red Rock Coulee area.
In 1991 and 1992 I also photographed similar landscapes in the southwest United States. I
travelled to Arches National Park, Utah; Canyonland National Park, Utah; Craters of the Moon
National Monument, Idaho; Canyon de Chelly, Arizona; Badlands National Park, South Dakota;
and Great Sand Dunes National Monument, Colorado.
Whenever I decide to photograph something, I strive to communicate a sense of discovery, of
excitement and of connection to the past through the beauty of the photographic image.
Margaret Shelton
Margaret Shelton was born in Bruce, Alberta, in 1915. She drew and painted from very early in
her life. In 1933 she enrolled at the Provincial Institute of Technology and Art in Calgary (now
SAIT). A.C. Leighton awarded her a scholarship in 1934 and 1935.
In 1935 she accepted a teaching position at Duck Lake, Alberta, but in 1936 returned to the
Tech. During 1937 and 1938 she studied painting under H.G. Glyde and from 1940 to 1943 she
studied at the Coste House under W.J. Phillips. From 1940 onwards she exhibited on and off
with the Alberta Society of Artists. She was a member of the Canadian Painters, Etchers and
Engravers from 1943 to 1953. She has also exhibited with the Calgary Sketch Club from 1968.
Shelton’s work is found in the Glenbow Museum, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, the
National Gallery of Canada, the Shell Collection and many other private and public collections.
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Leonard Simpson - biography unavailable
Robert van Schaik
Robert van Schaik was born in Taber, Alberta, in 1956 and lives in Lac La Biche. Educated at
the University of Calgary (1974-1976) and the Banff School of Fine Arts, Photography Program
(1977-1980), he has had exhibitions in Saskatchewan, Edmonton, Lethbridge, and Vancouver.
Kristen Wagner - biography unavailable
George Webber
George Webber’s work reveals his deep fascination and affection for the people and landscape
of the Canadian west. Webber was born in the town of Drumheller, Alberta, in 1952, and since
the early 1980s he has photographed this region extensively. “My concern is one of
photography’s most fundamental, the impulse to seize and arrest what is passing away”, says
Webber. “This desire seems to be felt most keenly when dealing with an aspect of one’s own
history and culture. In the prairies, all that is human is ephemeral.” Webber’s photographs have
been published and exhibited widely, earning him numerous awards and distinctions such as
induction into the Royal Canadian Academy in 1999 and the silver award for photojournalism
at the National Magazine Awards in 2001. His work is found in major national and international
collections including: The Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography and The Canada
Council Art Bank in Ottawa, the Musee de la Photographice, in Charleroi, Belgium, and the
Bibliotheque Nationale, in Paris.
John Will
Born in Waterloo, Iowa, in 1939, John Will lives and works in Calgary. A highly individual and
experimental artist, Will deals primarily with religion and spiritual enlightenment. His
autobiographical art combines political satire and commentary on popular culture with a playful,
often biting sense of humour. His extensive travels inform the themes and images of his work.
Will was educated at the University of Northern Iowa, Iowa City, where he received his MFA.
He studied in Amsterdam from 1964 to 1965 on a Fulbright Fellowship. He moved to Calgary in
1971 where he continues to play an active role as a practicing artist, a board member of Stride
Gallery, and a professor emeritus of the University of Calgary. Will’s work is represented in
numerous private and public collections throughout North America and has been featured in well
over 100 solo and group exhibitions both in Canada and abroad.
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Musical Artist Biographies/Statements
Paul Brandt
Paul Rennée Belobersycky, known professionally as Paul Brandt, is a Canadian country music
artist. Born in Calgary in 1972, Brandt grew up in Airdrie, Alberta, and attended Crescent Heights
High School from 1987 to 1990. In 1996 he made his mark on the country music charts with the
single ‘My Heart Has a History’, which propelled him to international success and made him the
first male Canadian country singer to reach the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot Country songs chart
in the United States since Hank Snow in 1974.
While working as a pediatric registered nurse in Calgary, Brandt sent a demo to Warner Canada,
which was forwarded to Warner Nashville. Brandt’s work was singled out and his first album
Calm Before the Storm and its first single ‘My Heart Has a History’ became number 1 hits in
Canada. He followed this up with two more albums released through Warner/Reprise Records of
Nashville and then started his own label, Brand-T Records. Since 2002 every album he has
released on Brand-T Records has garnered an Album of the Year award. The album This Time
Around, released in 2005, went platinum in Canada and produced the hit songs ‘Leavin’ and his
remake of the trucker classic song ‘Convoy’. His last single/video from the album was ‘Alberta
Bound’, a tribute to the people and places of Alberta.
Brandt and his wife Elizabeth are heavily involved in programs such as Samaritan’s Purse and
World Vision. He also does a lot of work with terminally ill children. Brandt received an
Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from the University of Lethbridge in 2009 and an Honorary
Doctorate of Divinity from Briercrest College and Seminary in 2010.
John Wort Hannam
John Wort Hannam is a Canadian folk musician. Born in Saint Helier, Jersey, Channel Islands,
he was raised in Fort Macleod, Alberta.
John Wort Hannam is known for his story telling through music. Themes which are central to his
music include life in Western Canada and the human experience as seen through the eyes of
the working man and woman. Until 2000 he was a full-time public school teacher. Since turning
to his music full-time he has performed at festivals in Canada, the United States, Great Britain
and Australia.
Corb Lund
Corb Lund is the lead singer of the band Corb Lund and the Hurtin’ Albertans, formerly known
as the Corb Lund Band. Corb Lund grew up in Southern Alberta, living on his family’s farm and
ranches near Taber, Cardston, and Rosemary. He left his hometown of Taber and moved to
Edmonton, where he enrolled at Grant MacEwan College to study jazz guitar and bass.
Lund was a founding member of the band The Smalls who sold over 35,000 albums over a
twelve-year span. The band retired in 2001 and Lund formed Corb Lund and the Hurtin’
Albertans. Since 2001 the band has released seven studio albums and received numerous
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awards.
Ian Tyson
Ian Dawson Tyson was born in 1933. A Canadian singer-songwriter best known for his song
‘Four Strong Winds’, he was born to British immigrants in Victoria and grew up in Duncan B.C.
A rodeo rider in his late teens and early twenties, he took up the guitar while recovering from an
injury and made his singing debut in Vancouver in 1956. After graduation from the
Vancouver School of Art in 1958 Tyson moved to Toronto where he commenced a job as a
commercial artist. There he performed in local clubs and in 1959 began to sing with Sylvia
Fricker. By early 1959 they were performing as Ian & Sylvia and became a full-time musical act
in 1961. In 1965 they married (divorced in 1975) and in 1969 they formed and fronted the group
The Great Speckled Bird. Residing in southern Alberta by then, they toured all over the world.
From 1971 to 1975 Tyson hosted a national television program The Ian Tyson Show on CTV. In
1989 he was inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame and in 2005 CBC Radio
One listeners chose his song ‘Four Strong Winds’ as the greatest Canadian song of all time on
the series 50 Tracks: The Canadian Version.
In 2010 Tyson put out his memoir The Long Trail: My Life in the West. Co-written with Calgary
journalist Jeremy Klaszus, the book ‘alternates between autobiography and a broader study of
Tyson’s relationship to the ‘West’ - both as a fading reality and a cultural ideal’.
Tyson became a Member of the Order of Canada in 1994 and was inducted into the Alberta
Order of Excellence in 2006.
Mary Kieftenbeld
Mary Kieftenbeld is a singer/songwriter who was born and raised near Calahoo, Alberta. Born
into a musical family she began singing in her local church choir at age six. At age ten she
picked up the guitar and has been singing and playing since. In May 2003 she released her
debut CD, takin’ time. Mary resides near Rivière Qui Barre with her husband Ed and their four
children.
Kieftenbeld was the winner of an Alberta Provincial Song contest for her song Alberta. The
contest was developed in preparation for the Alberta Centennial of 2005. Introduced as a private
member’s bill in the Fall 2001 sitting of the Alberta Legislature by Calgary MLA Wayne Cao, the
proposal was that the province adopt ‘an official song of Alberta to mark the province’s entry into
Canadian Confederation’. The Bill noted that the province had several official emblems enabling
Albertans to celebrate the province visually but that there was no musical equivalent allowing
them to express their affinity for their home province. The Bill introduced by Mr. Cao was passed
into law as the Alberta Official Song Act in November of 2001.
The search for Alberta’s official song was announced to Albertans in September of 2003. A total
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of 335 contest entries from applicants representing 100 communities were submitted, which
were then adjudicated by an Internal Working Group. This group rated each song on a scale of 1
to 10 on the basis of
- Lyric content - the song had to have original and unique lyrics reflecting the spirit of Alberta and
Albertans
- Theme - the lyrics had to celebrate Alberta’s diversity and reflect a positive view of Alberta
- Melodic Structure
- Composition
Out of the 335 entries 13 were selected and submitted for final judgment by the Alberta Official
Song Committee. Kieftenbeld’s work was recommended by the committee to become the Official
Song of Alberta as it embraced Alberta’s past, present, and future and captured the unfettered
spirit of optimism that characterizes Albertans.
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Talking Art
Brian Dyson
CONTENTS:
- Curriculum Connections: Art, Social Studies, Science, Music
- The music of ...out to Alberta
(song lyrics by Paul Brandt, John Wort Hannam, Corb Lund, Ian Tyson, Mary Kieftenbeld)
- Music and Art: A Survey
- Art History: Genre Painting: A Survey
- What are genre paintings?
- Where and why did genre paintings develop?
- What are the characteristics of genre painting?
- What themes or subjects are explored in genre
paintings?
- Art History - Styles of Artistic Expression in the Visual Arts
Romanticism in Painting
Realism in Painting and Drawing
Expressionism
Modernism/Abstraction
Photography: A Brief History
The Picturesque in Photography
Realism in Photography: The Documentary Eye
Photography: The Modern View
- Art Processes - Printmaking
- Watercolour
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Art Curriculum Connections
Level 1 (Grades 1-2)
REFLECTION
Component 2 - Students will assess the use or function of objects
Concepts
- designed objects serve specific purposes
- designed objects serve people
Component 3 - Students will interpret artworks literally
Concepts
- Art takes different forms depending on the materials and techniques used
- An artwork tells something about its subject matter and the artist who made it
- Colour variation is built on three basic colours
- Tints and shades of colours or hues affect the contrast of a composition
DEPICTION
Component 4 - Students will learn the shapes of things as well as develop decorative styles
Concepts
- All shapes can be reduced to basic shapes; i.e., circular, triangular, rectangular
- A horizontal line can be used to divide a picture plane into interesting and varied proportions of
sky and ground
Component 5 - Students will increase the range of actions and viewpoints depicted
Concepts
- Movement of figures and objects can be shown in different ways
- Forms can be overlapping to show depth or distance
Component 6 - Students will represent surface qualities of objects and forms
Concepts
- Textures form patterns
- Primary colours can be mixed to produce new hues
- Colour can be lightened to make tints or darkened to make shades - these tints or shades are
also referred to as tone or value
- Images are stronger when contrasts of light and dark are used
- Details enrich forms
COMPOSITION
Component 7 - Students will create emphasis based on personal choices
Concepts
- An active, interesting part of a theme can become the main part of a composition
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Component 8 - Students will create unity through density and rhythm
Concepts
- Families of shapes, and shapes inside or beside shapes, create harmony
- Overlapping forms help to unify a composition
- Repetition of qualities such as colour, texture and tone produce rhythm and balance
- A composition should develop the setting or supporting forms, as well as the subject matter
EXPRESSION
Component 10 (i) Pupose 1: - Students will record or document activities, people and
discoveries
Concepts
- Everyday activities can be documented visually
- Special events can be recorded visually
- Family groups and people relationships can be recorded visually
Purpose 2: - Students will illustrate or tell a story
Concepts
- A narrative can be retold or interpreted visually
- An original story can be created visually
Purpose 4: - Students will express a feeling or a message
Component 10 (ii) - Students will develop themes, with an emphasis on personal concerns,
based on:
- Environment and places
- Manufactured or human-made things
- People
Component 10 (iii) - Students will use media and techniques, with an emphasis on exploration
and direct methods in drawing, painting, print making, photography
LEVEL TWO (Grades 3 and 4)
REFLECTION
Component 3 - Students will interpret artworks by examining their context and less visible
characteristics
Concepts
- Contextual information may be needed to understand works of art
- Artistic style is largely the product of an age
- Our associations influence the way we experience a work of art
- Art serves societal as well as personal needs
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DEPICTION
Component 4 - Students will perfect forms and develop more realistic treatments
Concepts
- Shapes can suggest movement or stability
- Images can be portrayed in varying degrees of realism
- Size variations among objects give the illusion of depth
Component 5 - Students will select appropriate references for depicting
Concepts
- Actions among things in a setting create a dynamic interest
LEVEL THREE (Grades 5 and 6)
DEPICTION
Component 4 - Students will modify forms by abstraction, distortion and other transformations
Concepts
- Shapes can be abstracted or reduced to their essence
- Shapes can be distorted for special reasons
- Sighting techniques can be used to analyze the proportion of things
- Receding planes and foreshortened forms create depth in a picture plane
Component 5 - Students will refine methods and techniques for more effortless image making
Concepts
- Using a finder or viewing frame helps to see an action within a format
JUNIOR HIGH (Grades 7 - 9)
ENCOUNTERS
Sources of Images
Grade 7 - Students will identify similarities and differences in expressions of selected cultural
groups
Concepts
- Symbolic meanings are expressed in different ways by different cultural groups
Grade 9 – Students will consider the natural environment as a source of imagery through time
and across cultures
Concepts
- Images of individual people change through time and across cultures
- Images of nature change through time and across cultures
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DRAWINGS
Articulate and Evaluate
Grade 8 – Students will use the vocabulary of art criticism to develop a positive analysis of their
work
Concepts
- Identifying and describing techniques and media is part of learning to talk about art
- Dominant elements and principles or applications of media can be discussed by students in
relationship to the effective solving of their visual problems
COMPOSITIONS
Transformations Through Time
Grade 8 - Students will compare varying interpretations of natural forms and man-made artifacts
through time and across cultures
Concepts
- Comparisons between natural forms and architectural systems illustrate the functional aspects
of natural structure
- Natural forms and structures have been interpreted by artists of various cultures for decorative
and artistic purposes
SENIOR HIGH (Grades 10 – 12)
DRAWINGS
Communicate
Art 10 – Investigate varieties of expression in making images
Concepts
- Drawings can express the artist’s concern for social conditions
- A drawing can be a formal, analytical description of an object
Articulate and Evaluate
Art 30 – Use the vocabulary and techniques of art criticism to analyze and evaluate their own
works in relation to the works in professional artists
Concepts
- An understanding of major 20th century artists and movements adds to the ability to evaluate
one’s own work
- Identification of similarities and differences between the students and professional
artists enhances analysis of their own work
- The ability to discriminate between subjective response and an analytic response enhances
analysis of one’s own work
ENCOUNTERS
Sources of Images
Art 10 – Investigate the process of abstracting form from a source in order to create
objects and images
Concepts
- Artists simplify, exaggerate and rearrange parts of objects in their depictions of images
- Artists select from natural forms in order to develop decorative motifs
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Art 20 – Recognize that while the sources of images are universal, the formation of an
image is influenced by the artist’s choice of medium, the time and the culture
Concepts
- Artists and craftspeople use the possibilities and limitations of different materials to develop
imagery
- Different cultures exhibit different preferences for forms, colours and materials in their artifacts
Art 30 – Research selected artists and periods to discover factors in the artists’ environments
that influenced their personal visions
Concepts
- Personal situations and events in artists’ lives affect their personal visions and work
- Historical events and society’s norms have an affect on an artists’ way of life and work
Impact of Images
Art 30 – Question sources of images that are personally relevant or significant to them in
contemporary culture
Concepts
- Imagery can depict an important local, political or social issue
- Imagery can depict important aspects of the student’s own life
COMPOSITIONS
Components
Art 30 - Use personal experiences as sources for image making
Concepts
- The selection and presentation of perceptions, conceptions and experience as visual content
for artworks is an important aim of the artists
- Colour modifies the experience or idea presented in visual form
FUNCTION
The Changing Role of Art in Society
Art 21 – Students will consider the changing values placed on different art forms over time
Concepts
- Changes in painting reflect a society’s values
- Advances in technology increase the value of multiple images such as prints and
photographs
The Impact of World Culture on the Purpose of Art
Art 31 - Students will consider the sources of changing purpose and imagery in the art of our
time
Concepts
- The Canadian landscape has been an important source of imagery for Canadian artists of the
20th century
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CREATION
The Impact of Technology on the Creation of Art
Art 31 – Students will examine how contemporary society acquires, appreciates and preserves
artifacts
Concepts
- Modern society values the preservation and display of artwork for public appreciation
- Individuals collect art for a variety of reasons and in a variety of ways
- Modern commerce has had a substantial affect on the ownership and valuation of
artifacts in contemporary society
APPRECIATION
Analysing the Power of Artifacts
Art 11 – Students will consider how past experience influences personal reaction to a work of art
Concepts
- A wide variation in preference for art forms or features of art can be found among
individuals
- Meaning in art work is perceived differently by people with different attitudes toward the subject
matter
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Cross Curriculum Connections continued
This exhibition ...out to Alberta is an excellent source for using art as a means of
investigating topics addressed in other subject areas. The theme of the exhibition, and
the works within it, are especially relevant as a spring-board for addressing aspects
of the Social Studies, Science and Music program of studies. The following is an
overview of cross-curricular connections which may be addressed through viewing and
discussing the exhibition.
Social Studies
KINDERGARTEN TO GRADE 2
1.1.5 distinguish geographic features in their own community from other communities
- What are some familiar landmarks in my community
- Why are these landmarks and places significant features in the community
- What are some differences between rural and urban communities
1.2.1 appreciate how stories and events connect their families and communities to the
present.
- recognize how their families and communities might have been different in the past than they
are today
- appreciate how the language, traditions, celebrations and stories of their families, groups and
communities contribute to their sense of identity and belonging
2.1.2 investigate the physical geography of an Inuit, an Acadian and a prairie community
in Canada
- How does the physical geography of each community shape its identity
- How does the vastness of Canada affect how we connect to other Canadian communities
2.2.4 appreciate how connections to a community contribute to one’s identity
GRADE 4
4.1.1 value Alberta’s physical geography and natural environment
- appreciate the diversity of elements pertaining to geography, climate, geology and paleontology
in Alberta
- appreciate how land sustains communities and qualities of life
4.1.4 analyze how Albertans interact with their environment
- in what ways do physical geography and natural resources in a region determine the
establishment of communities
4.2.1 appreciate how an understanding of Alberta’s history, peoples and stories
contributes to their own sense of belonging and identity
- recognize how stories of people and events provide multiple perspectives on past and present
events
- recognize oral traditions, narratives, and stories as valid sources of knowledge about the land,
culture and history
4.3.4 examine recreation and tourism in Alberta
- how do recreational sites and activities reflect Alberta’s heritage and strengthen communities
- to what extent do recreation and tourism foster appreciation of Alberta’s natural regions and
environment
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GRADE 5
5.2.1 appreciate the complexity of identity in the Canadian context
- recognize how an understanding of Canadian history and the stories of its peoples contribute
to their sense of identity
10-20-30
10.1.2 Appreciate why peoples in Canada and other locations strive to promote their
cultures, languages and identities in a globalizing world
10.1.3 appreciate how identities and cultures shape and are shaped by globalization
10.3.7 explore multiple perspectives regarding the relationship among people, the land and
globalization
20.1.1 appreciate that understanding of identity, nation and nationalism continue to evolve
20.1.3 appreciate how the forces of nationalism shaped, and continue to shape, Canada and the
World
20.1.4 appreciate why people seek to promote their identity through nationalism
20.1.9 analyze nationalism as an identity, internalized feeling and/or collective consciousness
shared by a people
20.2.3 appreciate multiple perspectives related to the pursuit of national interest
20.4.5 analyze methods used by individuals, groups and governments in Canada to promote a
national identity
30.1.3 explore factors that may influence individual and collective beliefs and values
30.1.4 examine historic and contemporary expressions of individualism and collectivism
Science
ELEMENTARY
Topic A: Creating Colour - Students will identify and evaluate methods for creating colour
and for applying colours to different materials
- Identify colours in a variety of natural and manufactured objects
- Compare and contrast colours, using terms such as lighter than, darker than, more blue,
brighter than
- Order a group of coloured objects based on a given colour criterion
- Predict and describe changes in colour that result from the mixing of primary colours and from
mixing a primary colour with white or with black
- Create a colour that matches a given sample, by mixing the appropriate amounts of two
colours
- Distinguish colours that are transparent from those that are not. Students should recognize that
some coloured liquids and gels can be seen through and are thus transparent and that other
colours are opaque
- Compare the effect of different thickness of paint. Students should recognize that a very thin
layer of paint, or a paint that has been watered down, may be partly transparent.
Compare the adherence of a paint to different surfaces; e.g., different forms of papers, fabrics
and plastics
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GRADE 8
Topic C: Light and optical systems
1. Investigate the nature of light and vision and describe the role of invention, explanation and
inquiry in developing our current knowledge.
- Identify challenges in explaining the nature of light and vision
- Investigate light beams and optical devices
3. Investigate and explain the science of image formation and vision and interpret related
technologies
- Explain how objects are seen by the eye, and compare eyes with cameras
Music
ELEMENTARY
Expression
6. Music reflects our feelings about holidays, seasons, our country and cultural heritage
7. The words of a song are very important to the understanding of a song (text)
Listening
8. Follow a story told by music
9. Detect the rise and fall of melody
11. Respond to phrases in music
Moving
7. Improvise movements to poems, stories, songs
JUNIOR HIGH
Level II
- Music of Canada
- Composing music
Level III
- Artistic expression
Geography
10-20-30
Local and Canadian Geography 20
1c. Relationship of the urban industrial resources to the rural primary resources
2a. The human occupance of Western Canada
World Geography 30
1a. The human occupance of Canada
1d. Humankind’s settlement types and patterns
2c. Pastoralism or livestock economy
2d. Agriculture of the world
2e. World industry and resources
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History
10-20-30
Western Canadian History 20
6. Settlement and immigration
12. The Western Canadian mystique
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...out to Alberta selected song lyrics
Alberta
Mary Kieftenbeld
(Provincial song of Alberta, adopted in preparation for Alberta’s centennial celebrations of 2005)
Flatlands, rollin’ plains
Clear blue skies, prairie rains;
A tapestry of colours in the fall.
Snow covered mountain tops,
Wheat fields, canola crops’
Alberta has it all.
Alberta is calling me.
Home sweet home, it’s where I’m proud to be.
Livin’ right I’m feelin’ free.
First Nations built the land
Fur trade, way back then.
We’ve come a long way since that.
Agriculture, lumberjacks,
Oil derricks, natural gas;
There is no turnin’ back.
Home sweet home, it’s where I’m proud to be.
Livin’ right I’m feelin’ free.
Culture diverse as it can be.
This is the land of opportunity.
Welcoming friends, night and day.
That’s the way I pray Alberta stays.
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...out to Alberta
selected song lyrics
Four Strong Winds
Ian Tyson
Four strong winds that blow lonely,
Seven seas that run high
All those things that don’t change,
Come what may,
Our good times are all gone,
I’m bound for movin’ on,
I’ll look for you if I’m ever back this way...
Think I’ll go out to Alberta,
Weather’s good there in the fall
I got some friends that I can go to workin’ for,
Still, I wish you’d change your mind,
If I’d ask you one more time
But we’ve been through that a hundred times, or more...
Come what may,
If I get there before the snow flies,
If things are lookin’ good,
You could meet me if I’d send you down the fare,
But by then, it will be winter,
There ain’t too much for you to do
And those winds, they sure blow cold way out there...
Come what may,
I’ll look for you, if I’m ever back this way...
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No Roads Here
Corb Lund
There are no roads here
There are no signposts
To guide a man thru this dark land
There is no history
No written law to stay one’s hand
Well there’s a growed over wagon trail that’s headed for the west
There’s a tipi ring out to Purple Springs if your ponies need their rest
There’s a shepherd out in Vauxhall in the coulees who may know
But the sheep shack’s old and leaning and that was sixty years ago
There is no history
Well, I see handcarts pulled by desperate settlers bent under the yoke
Fleeing lives of certain serfdom for this new faith of which he spoke
Trekking ‘cross the desert with a few intrepid Danes
There’s time I still think I can feel the blood of Vikings in my veins
I hear “Strawberry Roan” and there’s bison bones been bleached out in the sun
South of Raymond, whiskey trade, the antelope still run
Hidden family reasons at the edge of consciousness
Silhouettes of grazing cattle on that olde Milk River Ridge
There is no history
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Alberta Bound
Paul Brandt
The sign said 40 miles to Canada
and my truck tore across Montana
Ian Tyson sang a lonesome lullaby
And so I cranked up the radio
Cause there’s just a little more to go
Before I cross the border at that Sweet Grass sign
I’m Alberta Bound
This piece of heaven that I’ve found
Rocky Mountains and black fertile ground
Everything I need beneath that big blue sky
It doesn’t matter where I go
This place will always be my home
Yeah I’ve been Alberta Bound for all my life
And I’ll be Alberta Bound until I die
It’s a pride that’s been passed down to me
Deep as coal mines, wide as farmer’s fields
Yeah, I’ve got independence in my veins
Maybe it’s my down-home redneck roots
Or these dusty ‘ol Alberta boots
But like a Chinook wind keeps coming back again
Ohhh! I’m Alberta Bound
This piece of heaven that I’ve found
Rocky Mountains and black fertile ground
Everything I need beneath that big blue sky
It doesn’t matter where I go
Yeah I’ve been Alberta Bound for all my life
Ohhh! It doesn’t matter where I go
Yeah I have been Alberta Bound for all my life
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Dynamite and ‘Dozers
John Wort Hannam
Take a good look son, they ain’t gonna last
There knockin’ ‘em down left and right
Take a good look son, next time we drive past
There may not even be one in sight
Another’s up for closure, dynamite and ‘dozers
Tradition ain’t no match for progress
Scale sheds and gables, scrap wood for sale
That’s the way it goes these days I guess
CHORUS
Sooner or later, the old elevators all will be coming down
Sooner or later, the old elevators all will be coming down
“What’s that in the picture?” your grandkids will ask
Standing in the history museum
A small scale model, some old photographs
Likely the only way they’ll ever see ‘em
That’s the day the congregation came to pay commiserations
Talk of when the grain reigned supreme
Nostalgia soaked tears, wait ‘till the dust clears
It’s the end of the line, a sign of the times it seems
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Church of the Long Grass
John Wort Hannam
Thirty-five degrees for the last six days
Sure as hell hasn’t helped the Blairmore blaze
But I can see that it’s raining in the hills tonight
All wrapped up in a blanket of haze
Fifty thousand acres of timber razed
But I can see that it’s raining in the hills tonight
I never found salvation in Jesus, whisky or pills
I never found it in money or the good book
I found it here in these hills
CHORUS
I belong to the Church of the Long Grass
The Parish of the Porcupine Hills
The grass can grow as tall as an old timer’s tale
Some say taller still
Yeah, I belong to the Church of the Long Grass
The Parish of the Porcupine Hills
I’ve always seen this land as holy
I guess I always will
Sadie was my girl from the age of fifteen
Homecomng and a beauty queen
And I hear she’s still reigning in the town tonight
Fancied a fella with money and means
Left me crying like some old has been
And I hear she’s still reigning in the town tonight
Blue can be a little temperamental, but he’s a reliable steed
If you keep a tight reign and sit tall in the saddle
He’ll give you what you need
CHORUS
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Music and Art: A Survey
Music and the Visual Arts have a long and
mutually enriching history. While seemingly
very different, the two disciplines share a
common vocabulary and have been inspired by
similar imagery and each other since the dawn
of human history.
Music and the visual arts are aspects of a larger
subdivision of human culture called ‘the arts’ which
describes many endeavors which are united by
their employment of the human creative impulse.
Collins English Dictionary defines ‘the arts’ as
“imaginative, creative, and nonscientific branches
of knowledge considered collectively.” Traditionally
there were seven classifications of art, these being
Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, Music, Poetry,
Dance and Theater. In contemporary terms
Photography and Comics have been added to this
listing.
Musicians of Amun
Tomb of Nakht
18th Dynasty, Thebes, Egypt
Major constituents of ‘the arts’ are the literary arts - poetry, novels, short stories etc.; the
performing arts - music, dance, theatre and film; and the visual arts. These divisions are not
absolute as there are art forms which combine a visual element with performance, such as film;
the written word with the visual, such as comics or some forms of poetry; or the audio/music with
the visual.
Music making has always been one of
the most popular subjects for painting,
allowing the artist to extend a work’s
scope to include hearing as well as sight.
Depictions of music in genre scenes come in
many forms, reflecting both artists’ concerns
and the social contexts in which paintings
were made. The portrayal of music-making
in art may indicate celebrations or represent
ideas of pleasure, indulgence, love and
licentiousness.
Roman Mosaic
Pompeii, Italy
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Music and Art: A Survey continued
Pierre Auguste Renoir
Girls at the Piano, 1892
Musée d’ Orsay, Paris
Edgar Degas
Musicians in the Orchestra, 1872
Pierre Auguste Renoir
Le Moulin de la Galette, 1876
Georges Seurat
Le Chahut, 1889-90
Krðller-Müller Museum, Netherlands
In the later part of the 19th century the Impressionist artists of Paris turned their eyes on
contemporary society. Rebelling against the academic salon system and the traditional
realistic portrayal of nature and the world, Impressionist painters sought to capture the sensation
of a moment and the play of light on a surface. Their work aimed for a sense of spontaneity and
prized suggestion over exacting details. In this pursuit artists such as Renoir, Degas, Seurat and
Toulouse Lautrec amongst others explored the vibrancy and excitement of contemporary life,
found in such places as the opera, ballet and the music hall, as subjects for their paintings.
The theme of music as a subject for visual art continued into the twentieth century.
Pablo Picasso, for example, explored this subject in his paintings throughout his career and in
1917 famously collaborated with Servei Diaghilev, artistic director of the Ballets Russes, in the
designing of sets and costumes in the cubist style for three Diaghilev ballets.
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Pablo Picasso
The Old Guitarist, 1903
Art Institute of Chicago
Pablo Picasso
Three Musicians, 1921
Museum of Modern Art, New York
The early twentieth century witnessed the birth of non-representational abstraction in the
works of artists such as Wassily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian. Both Kandinsky and
Mondrian took art and its inspirations in directions never seen before. Instead of recreating the
world as it looked or creating an impression of it, these artists tried to record how things ‘felt’.
As concerns musical inspirations, these artists tried to paint how music sounded and felt, using
colour and shape in abstract ways.
In speaking of his work Kandinsky stated
that he relinquished outer appearances in
order to more directly communicate feelings
to the viewer. He believed that colours and
shapes could convey deep spiritual truths
that lie beyond everyday appearances. In
1912, seeing similarities between painting
and music, he wrote:
Wassily Kandinsky
Composition X, 1939
Colour is the keyboard. They eye is the
hammer. The soul is the piano, with its
many strings. The artist is the hand that
purposefully sets the soul vibrating by
means of this or that key.
Understanding Painting, pg. 242
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Kandinsky’s paintings can be explored using terminology common to both music and art - as
improvisations or compositions whose tones (colours) and rhythms give rise to harmony or
dissonance.
In 1940 Piet Mondrian, escaping the European
theater of World War II, arrived in New York City where
he would remain until his death in 1944. Mondrian fell
in love with the city immediately, and also fell in love
with the boogie-woogie jazz music of the time. Inspired
by the grid system of the city and the rhythms of jazz
music, he created Broadway Boogie Woogie where the
tiny blinking blocks of colour create a vital and pulsing
rhythm, an optical vibration which jumps from
intersection to intersection like the streets of New York.
Piet Mondrian
Broadway Boogie Woogie, 1943
Museum of Modern Art, New York
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The connection between visual art, poetry and
music is not new. Arts communities have often
been connected through a common culture. As
the arts often reflect events and stories that are
part of the common public knowledge, similar
subject matter often occurs within all genres of
art.
Poetry and music have been closely linked for
centuries. Due to poetry’s melodic and metered
verses, musicians have often found it easy to
translate poetry into song. Some of the earliest
examples of poetry in music were from the songs
of travelling minstrels and troubadours throughJ.W. Waterhouse
out Europe in the Middle Ages. These individuals The Lady of Shalott, 1888
would write poems about history or legends and Tate Gallery, London
sing them to music during their performances.
The troubadours added to this collective culture by sharing the same stories amongst towns and
villages, thus keeping the legends and histories alive in the public consciousness.
Poems and songs have continued to be combined throughout the centuries. Some well known
poets who have had their verses translated into song include Burns, Tennyson, Shakespeare,
Yeats and Byron. The works of Tennyson are particularly noteworthy because many of his
poems are based on medieval legends, connecting him to the history of the troubadours. More
than one of his poems have been turned into a song. A recent example includes Canadian folk
singer Loreena McKennitt’s rendition of Tennyson’s ‘The Lady of Shalott’. This connection shows
the relevance of certain key motifs, such as those of Arthurian legend, to European and North
American culture throughout the centuries - from medieval troubadours, to Tennyson in the 19th
century, to the present day.
Poetry and music can also be connected with visual arts. A prime example of the connection
between poetry and art can be seen in the work of William Blake. Blake, an English poet and
artist from the 19th Century, was known for connecting his written poems with his paintings. The
works can be viewed separately or together to gain new perspectives on his stories.
Just as the themes of Arthurian legend come up in the poems of Tennyson and the songs of
McKennitt, paintings of the stories were also common. Due to the popularity of the legends in
the 19th century, artists often created paintings of the tales. One example is of
J.W. Waterhouse’s painting ‘The Lady of Shalott’ created in 1888 – nearly 60 years after
Tennyson’s poem.
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William Doherty
photograph from the movie
‘Remains’
Kerlin Gallery, Dublin, Ireland
Examples of history spilling into the arts can
also be seen in contemporary culture. Major
events can sometimes result in a surge of
artistic subject matter on the topic. One
example can be heard in the well-known song
‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ by U2. The song
references a violent massacre during the Irish
Civil War. Visual artists have also been
influenced by the war and this particular
massacre. Irish artist Willie Doherty, an Irish
photographer, created a series of works
referencing the hardships during the war and
the tragedy of the Sunday killings. Artists from
the community also came together to create a
mural to remember citizens who lost their lives
during the shooting. As major events leave their
marks on a community, art, music and poetry
often reflect the collective consciousness and
reveal the commonalities of the culture.
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Genre Painting: A Survey
WHAT ARE GENRE PAINTINGS?
Pictorial representations in any media that represent scenes or events from everyday life
are called Genre paintings or genre scenes. Such paintings focus on the mundane trivial
incidents of everyday life, depicting people the viewer can easily identify with
employed in situations that tell a story. Genre themes appear in nearly all art traditions
and throughout time. Painted decorations in Egyptian tombs, for example, often depict
banquets, recreation, and agrarian scenes, while even medieval prayer books are
decorated with peasant scenes of daily life. Various themes expressed in Genre paintings
are expressed in the exhibition ...out to Alberta .
As described in the text Understanding Paintings:
‘It is a basic human desire to represent one’s own reality’ and depictions of subjects such as
sports, love, business and pleasure have been a popular form of decoration from at least the 6th
century B.C. (Understanding Paintings: Themes in Art Explored and Explained., pg. 194)
Painter
Mosaic, 1st Century, A.D.
Pompeii, Italy
The term genre is derived from the French
word for ‘kind’ or ‘variety’. Until the late 18th
century the term embraced what were then seen
as the minor categories of art, such as landscape,
still-life, and animal painting. By the end of the
18th century the term had been refined and
applied to paintings that depicted familiar or rustic
life. During the 19th century it was in common
usage for paintings that showed scenes of
everyday life. Unlike history painting, genre works
concentrate less on the extremes of human
behavior and more on commonplace experience
familiar to both the artist and the viewer. Also,
because genre painting is inherently figurative art,
it survived in the twentieth century in the work of
painters who stood outside the flood-tide of
abstraction.
Prior to the mid 19th century, the visual arts were structured according to a hierarchy of
genres which ranked different types of genres in an art form in terms of their value. The
hierarchies in the visual arts are those initially formulated for painting in 16th century Italy and
held sway with little alteration until the 19th century. These hierarchies were formalized and
promoted by the academies in Europe between the 17th and 20th centuries. The fully developed
hierarchy, in order of importance, distinguished between:
1/ History Painting - which included narrative religious and allegorical subjects
2/ Portrait Painting
3/ Genre Painting or scenes of everyday life
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Genre Painting continued
4/ Landscape and cityscape scenes
5/ Animal paintings
6/ Still life paintings
This hierarchy was partly the result of paintings’ struggle to gain acceptance as one of the
Liberal Arts, on par with sculpture and architecture, during the Renaissance. In this aim the early
artist-theoriest Leon Battista Alberti argued, in 1436, that multi-figure history painting was the
noblest form of art because it was a visual form of history, involved multiple figures and thus was
very difficult. This view was also based on a distinction between art that made an intellectual
effort to ‘render visible the universal essence of things’ and to present a moral message, and
that which merely consisted of ‘mechanical copying of particular appearances’ or dealt with
frivolous subjects. Alberti’s theories on the hierarchy of various modes of artistic expression were
echoed and elaborated by André Félibien, a French historiographer, architect and theoretician
of French classicism in 1667. Félibien argued that the painter should imitate God, whose most
perfect work was man, and show groups of human figures and choose subjects from history and
fable. This hierarchy became strictly enforced by European academies until the mid 19th
century and genre scenes, which did not concern elevated ideals or heroic subjects, were thus
considered of lower importance.
WHERE and WHY DID GENRE PAINTING
DEVELOP?
Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1525-1569)
Peasant Wedding, 1565
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
Despite the elevated importance of history and
allegorical painting, many artists during the
Renaissance explored the painting of genre
scenes and genre subjects gradually became
an acceptable avenue for artistic expression.
This was particularly true in what is now the
Netherlands. The Flemish Renaissance painter
Pieter Brueghel the Elder made peasants and
their activities the subject of many of his
paintings and, following him, genre painting
came to flourish in Northern Europe.
The success of genre scenes as an
acceptable field of artistic expression was largely tied to changes in the art-buying
market in what is now Holland. In the 17th century the Dutch successfully ejected the
Catholic Spanish nobility. This revolution led both to the rise of a Protestant middle class and,
as far as art was concerned, a drop in the market for large-scale religious and classical works.
Losing the patronage of the Catholic nobility and the Catholic Church artists were no longer able
to work solely to commissions and so had to produce works that would appeal to a new market
where the customer would decide whether or not to buy. The success of genre painting in the
Netherlands was also a result of the pride the Dutch took in their own country and their desire
to support their own national painting rather than to look to the past or to Rome for inspiration. A
number of famous Dutch artists such as Issac van Ostade, Aelbert Cuyp, Pieter De Hooch and
Johannes Vermeer specialized in genre subjects in the Netherlands during the 17th century and,
from Holland, the importance of this branch of painting gradually spread throughout the rest of
Europe.
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Gustave Courbet(1819-1877)
L’Atelier du Peintre, 1855
Toward the end of the 19th century many
painters and art critics began to rebel
against the many rules of the art academies,
including the status that had been accorded
to history painting for centuries. In 1846 the
French poet and art critic Charles Baudelaire
called for paintings that expressed ‘the
heroism of modern life’ (H.W. Janson, History of
Art, Second Edition, pg. 605) and slowly there
was a move away from the prevalent neoclassical and romantic art styles and historical
subjects.
One of the most important artists to embrace this trend was the French Realist painter Gustave
Courbet (1819-1877). Though he began his career as a Romantic artist, Courbet moved to
embrace ‘realism’ or ‘naturalism’, stating that the modern artist must rely on his own direct
experience. Courbet further upset expectations by depicting everyday scenes in huge paintings at the scale traditionally reserved for ‘important’ subjects - thus blurring the boundary which had
set genre painting apart as a ‘minor’ category. The new artistic movements of Realism and
Impressionism, which each sought to depict the present moment and daily life as observed by
the eye, and unattached from historical significance, had, by the end of the 19th century,
effectively ended the power of the academies and the elevation of history paintings at the
expense of both landscape and genre scenes.
WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF
GENRE PAINTING?
Throughout the 16th to 19th centuries genre
scenes came to express certain conventions
and themes, many of which have continued
to influence directions in contemporary genre
paintings.
First, genre scenes are usually set in familiar
settings. Settings focused on kitchens and
taverns, rooms in houses and schools, and the
works portrayed modest characters and settings
which made the paintings seem more realistic and
also made it more likey they would be understood.
Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675)
The Milkmaid, 1658
A second important characteristic of such
scenes, and one which separates such works
from portraits, is that the characters depicted
are generic types to whom no identity can be
attached either individually or collectively. The
people portrayed do not funtion as individuals but
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as vessels bearing required meanings for specific
contexts.
Thirdly, in genre paintings the artist is often
concerned with perspective, with a well-calculated
perspecitve making the paintings seem more true to life.
Charles McCall
Interior of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London,
1963
Collection of the Art Gallery of Alberta
Euphemia McNaught
Anglican Church and Hudson Hope, 1945
Pastel crayon, ink on paper
TREX Exhibition: A Room with a View
WHAT THEMES OR SUBJECTS ARE EXPLORED IN
GENRE PAINTINGS?
Over the centuries artists have explored a number of
themes in genre paintings. One of the most important
of these has been the representation of women’s
domestic abilities. In the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries women’s domestic work was considered
extremely important by the middle class and many genre
scenes show women devoted to duty. As many early
genre works contained a moral message, the implication
of paintings which showed women working diligently was
that those viewing the work should take example and do
the same.
Jean Baptiste Siméon Chardin (1699-1779)
Woman Cleaning Turnips, 1738
Alte Pinakothek Museum, Munich, Germany
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Helen Flaig
Dishes, 1996
Oil on masonite
John Lyman (1886-1967)
La Salle De Couture, 1951
Another theme explored in genre paintings is that
of vice. Paintings which convey ‘wrong’ behaviour in
order to invite condemnation of their protagonists often
make use of humour, proverbs, puns, slang, signs and
symbols. Such suggestions can be subtle, inviting the
viewer to work out exactly what is improper or wrong,
or be shocking in their depictions. Perhaps the most
famous artist to explore this side of genre painting was
the British painter and illustrator William Hogarth (16971764) whose satirical works pointed up the follies of
British society.
William Hogarth (1697-1764)
Marriage à-la-mode, Shortly After the
Marriage
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Édouard Manet (1832-1883)
A Bar at the Folies-Bergères, 1882
A third theme explored in genre paintings
concerns scenes of food and drink. Eating and
drinking are common to everyone and so such
scenes are readily accessible to viewers. Many such
paintings, however, convey a moral message and
food and drink can have many symbolic meanings.
Bread and wine, for example, can represent the
eucharist; oysters have a sexual connotation; and
the bottles and fruit in Manet’s painting A Bar at the
Folies-Bergères suggest the importance of consumer
goods to an increasingly mercantile society
(Understanding Paintings: Themes in Art Explored
and Explained, pg. 202) Conversely, paintings of
great banquets and parties can celebrate the pursuit
of pleasure and marry indulgence with little concern
for morality.
The focus on foodstuffs and containers in a painting may also be simply formal in nature. The
inclusion of these elements allows the artist to enjoy various textures and shapes and to show
off his or her ability to observe and represent.
Ronald Spickett (1926-)
Supper,1962
Acrylic on masonite
Maxwell Bates(1906-1980)
Picnic,1962
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Leisure activities such as sports, dancing and other such pursuits are a further and very
popular source of inspiration for artists who approach genre subjects. Scenes of peasants
carousing and dancing were common features in the genre painting of Northern Europe in the
16th and 17th centuries while informal scenes showing the rich at play were common features of
the French Rococo style. Such scenes allow the artist an opporunity to create a dazzling display
of costumes, surfaces and settings. Often such paintings can create a nostalgia for good times
remembered or an ideal world where life is less complicated. In the hands of some modern
artists, however, such scenes can act as a window on the ‘grittier’ sides of life.
Arpad Csanyi
After Aerobics, 1991
Acrylic, oil on paper
George Bellows (1882-1925)
Dempsey and Firpo, 1924
Whitney Museum of American Art
Henri Toulouse Lautrec (1864-1901)
At the Moulin Rouge, 1892
Art Institute of Chicago
Brian Dyson
for the Arts
TREX Exhibition: ...out to Alberta
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Both Rural and Urban scenes form other sources of inspiration for genre artists. The
nineteenth century witnessed the rise of industrialization, the abolition of slavery, and the
modernization of labour. Questions about the rights of the individual and social and
governmental structures came to the fore and painting came to reflect these social and
political concerns. In order to express this new world artists began to turn away from grand
historical painting and new artistic movements such as Realism and Naturalism came to
prominence. In France the dominant artists of the Realist movement were Jean-Francois Millet
(1814-1875), Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) and Honore Daumier (1808-1879). Millet
concentrated on scenes of rural France in which he depicted the hard but dignified life of the
peasantry while Courbet and Daumier widened the focus to include scenes from all of everyday
life.
Jean Francois Millet (1814-1875)
The Gleaners, 1857
Musée d’ Orsay, Paris
Honore Daumiert 1808-1879)
Third Class Carriage, 1864
George Webber
Joanne Boyer
Fresh Bread Today, 1959
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The nineteenth century, characterized by rapid industrialization and changes in both the
labour force and social fabric of society, witnessed a huge growth in urban populations
in both Europe and North America. The changes this entailed were reflected in the visual
arts and urban life became a central theme in genre scenes throughout the 19th and 20th
century.
Artists have tried to convey the impressions and sensations of everyday urban life through a
variety of means, using loose brushwork or untraditional compositions or employing dramatic
and unsettling contrasts of light and dark. Cities either promise excitement, new pleasures and
future successes or else abound with danger and potential pitfalls. As a result, artists have
either created paintings which display the crowds and clamor of city life or in which an
atmosphere of anxiety, alienation and loneliness is evoked.
Maxwell Bates
Cafe, Highlights, March 1951, 1951
Linocut on paper
Charles Demuth
Turkish Bath with Self Portait, 1918
Edward Hopper (1882-1967)
Office at Night, 1940
Bartley Robillard Pragnell
Main Street Balcony, 1948
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A final very popular subject in genre paintings concerns scenes of music making. Such
scenes allow the artist to extend a work’s scope to include hearing as well as sight.
Descriptions of music in genre painting come in many forms. Music engenders harmony
between people and is used as a way of showing goodwill and happiness. In 18th and 19th
century literature music lessons were commonly used as the settings for seductions since the
young male music teacher enjoyed the unusual privilege of spending time alone in the company
of young women. In 18th century French painting music also reinforced the ideas of pleasure
and indulgence. In late 19th century Paris, meanwhile, the café concert was one of the most
popular venues for socializing and operas and ballet were also popular leisure pursuits.
Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675)
The Music Lesson, 1662-1665
Terry Munro
Untitled, n.d.
Robert Young
The Juggler’s Rehearsal, 1980
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Art History - Styles of Artistic Expression in
the Visual Arts: Painting, Drawing and
Photography
The history of ‘western European’ styles of art in Canada is a very recent one. This is
especially true in western Canada where it is only over the past one hundred years that
one can witness the emergence of professional art practices. These practices and
artistic styles are excellently expressed in the art works found in the exhibition
...out to Alberta and the following pages examine these artistic styles as they relate to the
works in the exhibition and to various media of artistic expression.
Styles of Artistic Expression Romanticism and Realism
In western Canada the visual art produced during the first decades of the 20th century
was heavily influenced by European traditions developed over the course of the 18th and
19th centuries. During the 18th and early 19th centuries art expressions in drawing,
painting, sculpture and photography were divided between the trends of ROMANTICISM and
REALISM. Romanticism in the visual arts incorporated both the imaginative and the ideal,
rather than the real, and embraced concepts of nobility, grandeur, virtue and superiority. In
British painting of the late 18th and 19th centuries, Romanticism was most clearly expressed
in the development and elevation of landscape painting where artists came to emphasize the
picturesque or the sublime in their rendering of the landscape.
By the 18th century the treatment of the landscape in painting had been formalized and
two of the most important aesthetic ideals of the 18th and 19th centuries were those of
the beautiful and the sublime. According to the philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804),
beauty was inherent in a form. The sublime, in contrast, was a characteristic which attached to
objects an impression of limitlessness, and involved developing a sensibility for the wild,
awe-inspiring and stupendous aspects of natural scenery. Edmund Burke (1757), who restricted
the nature of the word to the emotion of ‘terror’, stated that for a painting to be sublime
...a judicious obscurity in some things contributes to the effect of the picture, because ‘...in all art
as in nature, dark, confused, uncertain images have a greater power on the fancy to form the
grander passions that those which are more clear and determinate.’
According to Burke, beauty creates joy through being well formed, smooth and perfect, whereas
the sublime is the experience of fear and awe which produces an emotion far more intense
than the experience of beauty. Such sentiments had been voiced earlier by the French artist and
art critic Roger de Piles (1635-1709) who stated
...in Painting there must be something Great and Extraordinary to surprise, please and instruct...
Tis by this that ordinary things are made beautiful and the beautiful sublime and wonderful...
(Oxford Companion to Art, Oxford University Press, pg. 1113)
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Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840)
The Abbey in the Oakwood, 1808-1810
Oil on canvas
Alte Nationalgaleerie, Berlin
Otto Jacobi
The Falls at Sunset, 1886
Oil on canvas
An aesthetic category which existed between beauty and the sublime was that of the
picturesque. The picturesque came to represent the standard of taste, especially as
concerns landscape painting, design and architecture, during the second half of the 18th
and early 19th centuries. One of the earliest proponents of this philosophy was the British artist
and clergyman William Gilpin (1724-1804). Gilpin believed that Claude Lorrain’s paintings were
synonymous with picturesque painting and encouraged artists to emulate the 17th century
master in their treatment of the landscape. In his writings Gilpin spoke of the necessity of the
artist to supply ‘composition’ to the raw material of nature to produce a harmonious design.
According to Gilpin, for a painting to be ‘properly picturesque’, artists should follow four
main specifications:
1/ The scene should be divided into three distinct zones: a dark foreground containing a front
screen of foliage or rocks or side screens; a brighter middle ground; and at least one further,
less distinctly rendered distance.
2/ The composition should be planned with a low viewpoint which emphasized the
sublime nature of the scene portrayed.
3/ The artist could include a ruined building as this would add ‘consequence’ to the scene.
4/ Ruggedness of texture and the distribution of light and dark within the image were
essential considerations.
Gilpin’s ideas on landscape composition were adapted by later writers, such as John
Ruskin, and became the standards against which landscape paintings and artists were
measured. These ideas were transported from Britain to Canada during the mid to late
19th century and determined the approach of artists to the Canadian landscape. In order
to be accepted by the Royal Canadian Academy of Art and to be collected by the National
Gallery of Canada, artists had to conform to the rules of landscape composition that had
been devised by Gilpin and others.
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Art History: Realism in Painting, Drawing
and Photography
Opposed to the Romantic Movement in the arts was that of
Realism. In the visual arts realist artists render everyday
characters, situations, dilemas and objects in a ‘true-to-life’
manner. Realism was strongly influenced by the development
of photography which created a desire for people to produce
things that looked ‘objectively’ real. Realist artists believe in the
ideology of objective reality and revolted against exaggerated
emotionalism. In the 19th century realist artists rejected the
artificiality of both classicism and romanticism in academic art
and discarded theatrical drama, lofty subjects and classical
forms in favour of commonplace themes.
Ford Madox Brown
The Last of England, 1852-1855
City Museum & Art Gallery,
Birmingham, England
The Realist Movement began in France in the 1850s and independently in England at the same
time. Realism set as its goal the apparently truthful and accurate depiction of the models that
nature and contemporary life offered the artist. The 19th century realists chose to paint common,
ordinary, and sometimes ugly images rather than what they saw as the stiff and conventional
pictures favoured by upper-class society. Their subjects often alluded to a social, political, or
moral message. Realism was influential in the development of many later movements, such as
the American Ash Can School (early 20th century), and is seen in the work of many
contemporary artists as well. In the exhibition ...out to Alberta this style is most clearly seen in the
painting by Roland Gissing.
Roland Gissing
Untitled, n.d.
Oil on canvas
Collection of the Alberta Foundation for
the Arts
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Art History: Expressionism
Expressionism refers to an aesthetic style of expression in art history and criticism that
developed during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Artists affiliated with this movement
deliberately turned away from the representation of nature as a primary purpose of art and broke
with the traditional aims of European art in practice since the Renaissance. In the exhibition
...out to Alberta this style of artistic expression is most clearly seen in the painting Immigrants by
Michael Burns.
Expressionist artists proclaimed the direct rendering of emotions and feelings as the only true
goal of art. The formal elements of line, shape and colour were to be used entirely for their
expressive possibilities. In European art, landmarks of this movement were violent colours and
exaggerated lines that helped contain intense emotional expression. Balance of design was
ignored to convey sensations more forcibly and DISTORTION became an important means of
emphasis.
The most important forerunner of Expressionism
was Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890). Van Gogh
used colour and line to consciously exaggerate
nature ‘to express…man’s terrible passions.’
This was the beginning of the emotional and
symbolic use of colour and line where the
direction given to a line is that which will be
most expressive of the feeling which the object
arouses in the artist.
The Norwegian artist Edvard Munch (18631944) was also extremely influential in the
development of expressionist theory. In his
career Munch explored the possibilities of
violent colour and linear distortions with which
to express the elemental emotions of anxiety,
fear, love and hatred. In his works, such as
The Scream, Munch came to realize the
potentialities of graphic techniques with their
simple directness.
Vincent van Gogh
Bedroom at Arls, 1888
Van Gogh Museum
the Netherlands
Edvard Munch
The Scream, 1893
Michael Burns
Immigrants, 1990
Oil on masonite
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Modern Art/Abstraction
One of the major movements in the visual arts in the 20th century was that of
MODERNISM, an aesthetic movement which found fertile expression in both the visual
arts and in architecture throughout the 20th century and a movement that is most clearly
expressed in the exhibition ...out to Alberta in the works of Robert Hope and Radford
Blackrider.
Modernism refers to a set of cultural tendencies and an array of associated cultural
movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western
society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The term encompasses the
activities and output of those who felt the ‘traditional’ forms of art, architecture, literature, social
organization and daily life were becoming outdated in the new conditions of an emerging
industrialized world.
The first wave of the modernist art movement occured
in the opening years of the 20th century. Modernist
landmarks include the expressionist paintings of
Wassily Kandinsky, starting in 1903 and culminating
with his first abstract painting and the formation of
the Blue Rider group in Munich in 1911, and the rise
of cubism, which altered perspective, in the work of
Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque in 1908. These
movements gave new meaning to what was termed
‘modernism’. They embraced discontinuity and
approved disruption, rejecting or moving beyond
Wassily Kandinsky
simple realism in literature and art.
Composition XV, 1911
Private collection
A tendencey towards abstraction is characteristic of modern
art. By one definition, abstraction involves the reduction of natural
appearances to simplified forms. In this sense, abstraction may
involve the depiction of only the essential or generic forms of
things by elimination of particular variations. Within this abstraction
can, but does not need to, include distortion and stylization.
Distortion involves using incorrect or unusual reproductions of the
shape of things, whereas stylization involves the representation
of something through using a set of recognizable characteristics.
In contrast, abstraction may also involve the creation of
independent constructs of shapes and colours which have
aesthetic appeal in their own right.
Pablo Picasso
Portrait of Ambrose Voillard, 1910
Oil on canvas
Pushkin Museum of Fine Art, Moscow, Russia
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Visual Culture - Modern Art continued
World War 1, which made realism seem bankrupt,
provided a tremendous impetus to ideas of
modernism which came to define the 1920s. Art
movements such as Dada and surrealism stressed
new methods to produce new results and by the 1930s
the tenets of modernism had won a place in the
political and artistic establishment. After World War II
the U.S. became the focal point of new artistic
movements. During the late 1940s Jackson Pollock’s
radical approach to painting revolutionized the
potential for all contemporary art that followed him.
Pollock’s move away from easel painting and
conventionality was a liberating signal to the artists of
both his time and those that have come after. Artists
understood that Pollock’s abstract expressionist
process essentially blasted artmaking beyond any prior
boundary and expanded and developed the definitions
and possibilities available to artists for the creation of
new works of art. Process art as inspired by Pollock
enabled artists to experiment with and make use of a
diverse encyclopedia of style, content, material,
placement, sense of time, and plastic and real space.
Jackson Pollock
Number 8 (Detail), 1949
Oil, enamel, aluminum paint on canvas
Collection of The Neuberger Museum
State University of New York
Robert Hope
Bird Fence, 1982
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Art History: The Development and Art
of Photography
The exhibition ...out to Alberta invites the viewer to contemplate perceptions of Alberta and
how these perceptions are expressed through both visual art and music. Some of the
works in this exhibition are photographic in nature and this exhibition is thus a vehicle
for understanding photography as a means of artistic expression. Since the early 1970s
photography has increasingly been accorded a place in fine art galleries and exhibitions,
but what is this medium? How and why did photography develop, how is photography related to artistic pursuits such as painting, and what makes a fine-art photograph different
than the ‘snapshots’ virtually everyone takes with their digital cameras or cell phones?
The following pages briefly examine the history of photography and photographic genres
in order to answer the above questions and provide an entry into the photographic works
in the exhibition ...out to Alberta.
Photography: A brief history
While there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what
we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us
to see.
Dorothea Lange
The word photography derives from the Greek words
phōs meaning light, and gráphein meaning ‘to write’.
The word was coined by Sir John Herschel in 1839.
Image credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Camera
Artists and scientists have been interested in the
properties of light, chemistry and optics for over 1000
years. In the tenth century the Arab mathematician and
scientist Alhazen of Basra invented the first ‘camera
obscura’, a device which demonstrated the behavior of
light to create an inverted image in a darkened room.
Artists turned to mathematics and optics to solve
problems in perspective.
The development of the camera obscura allowed artists to faithfully record the external world.
The principle of this device involved light entering a minute hole in a darkened room which
formed, on the opposite wall, an inverted image of whatever was outside the room.
The camera obscura, at first actually a room big enough for a man to enter, gradually grew
smaller and by the 17th and 18th centuries it was the size of a two foot box which had a lens
fitted into one end. By the mid 18th century the camera obscura had become standard
equipment for artists.
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Art History: Photography: A Brief History
continued
Image credits: http://en.wikipedia.
org/wiki/Camera_obscura
In the early 1700s it was discovered that light not only formed images, but also changed the
nature of many substances. The light sensitivity of silver salts, discovered in 1727, opened the
way to discover a method to trap the ‘elusive image of the camera’ (The History of Photography,
Beaumont Newhall, pg.11)
Developments in optics, and the incentive to find a practical means to capture images produced
by the camera obscura, were stimulated by the growth of the middle class in the 18th century
which created a demand for portraits at reasonable prices. By the 1800s a number of inventors
were working towards a means to obtain an image using light and to fix the image making it
permanent.
The first inventor to create a permanent photographic
image was Nicéphone Niepce of France in 1826. In
1829 Niepce signed a contract with Louis Jacques
Mande Daguerre who, while ‘...he did not invent
photography, made it work, made it popular, and made
it his own’ (The Picture History of Photography, Peter
Pollack, pg. 19) In partnership with Louis Daguerre,
Niépce refined his silver process and, after his death
in 1833, his experiments were furthered by Daguerre.
In 1839 Daguerre announced the invention of the
daguerreotype, which was immediately patented by
Louis Daguerre
the French government and the era of the camera
L’ Atelier de l’ artiste, 1837
began.
Daguerreotype
The daguerreotype proved popular in responding to the demand for portraiture emerging from
the middle classes during the Industrial Revolution. This demand, which could not be met by oil
paintings, added to the push for the development of photography. This push was also the result
of the limitations of the daguerreotype, which was a fragile and expensive process and could not
be duplicated. Photographers and inventors, then, continued to look for other methods of
creating photographs. Ultimately the modern photographic process came about from a series of
refinements and improvements in the first 20 years. In 1884 George Eastman of Rochester, New
York, developed dry gel on paper, or film, to replace the photographic plate. This was followed
in 1888 by his Kodak camera, with the result that anyone could take a photograph. Photography
became readily available for the mass-market in 1901 with the introduction of the Kodak
Brownie.
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The Picturesque in Photography
Like all genre in the visual arts, photography can be divided amongst various modes of
expression. Almost from the beginnings of its invention in the mid-1800s a
philosophical debate concerning the use of photography came to the fore amongst the
medium’s earliest practitioners. On the one hand, certain photographers believed that
photography should aspire to the artistic and the ’exercise of individual genius’. Those
who believed in this mode of photographic expression took their inspiration from the
Picturesque Landscape Tradition in painting. In the exhibition ...out to Alberta, this
pictorial approach is best exemplified in the work of Paul Murasko.
In the early days of photography, many photographers believed that if their work was to
be taken seriously as a new art form the medium had to compete with painting and, to do
so, adopt the methodology of the painting styles of the period. In painting the conceps of
the sublime and the picturesque were dominant and so photographers began to
manipulate images, to retouch negatives, and even to paint over the prints to create a
pictorial effect. Many also used soft focus, special filters, gel and later combination printing using several negatives to make one picture - to create allegorical compositions. Such
manipulations, which were major tools in the genre of Pictorial Photography or Pictorialism,
were meant to allow photographers to achieve ‘personal artistic expression’ and ‘atmosphere’ in
their works.
Robert Demachy (1859-1936)
Speed, 1904
Published in Camera Work, No.5,
1904
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Robert_Demachy
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Art History: Photography as Art
continued: The Picturesque in Photography
continued
As expressed by Henry Peach Robinson in
1869:
Any ‘dodge, trick, and conjuration’ of any
kind is open to the photographer’s use.... It
is his imperative duty to avoid the mean, the
base and the ugly, and to aim to elevate his
subject, to avoid awkward forms, and to
correct the unpicturesque.... A great deal
can be done and very beautiful pictures
made, by a mixture of the real and the
artificial in a picture.
(The History of Photography, Beaumont
Newhall, pg. 61)
Socttish landscape
photographer and date unknown
Paul Murasko
Stagecoach, 1988
Silver gelatin print, hand painted on paper
for the Arts
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Art History: Realism in Photography: The
Documentary Eye
There is a terrible truthfulness about photography.
George Bernard Shaw
Whlle some photographers believed that photography should emulate painting, on the
other side of the debate were those who believed that photography was primarliy a
popular means of reproducing the material world. For all their ambitions, the artistphotographers remained a tiny group within the body photographic whereas it was
photography’s capacity for recording fact, giving evidence, and presenting a document
that practitioners and their public valued most. This aim of photographers to create a
‘real’ document, which derived from the genre of realism in painting, resulted in the genre
of DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHY and is most fully expressed in the exhibition ...out
to Alberta in the works of Brian Dyson, Wally Houn, George Webber and Terry Munro and
Kristen Wagner.
Documentary photography has been defined as ‘...a
depiction of the real world by a photographer whose
intent is to communicate something of importance to make a comment - that will be understood by the
viewer.’ (Time Life Library of Photography, pg. 12) In
such photography the photographer attempts to
produce truthful, objective, and usually candid
photography of a particular subject, most often pictures
of people.
As a genre of photography, documentary
photography developed in three general stages.
While the actual term ‘documentary photography’ was
coined in the 1930s to describe a category of
photography which comments on reality, photographs
meant to accurately describe otherwise unknown,
hidden, forbidden, or difficult-to-access places or
circummstance date to the earliest daguerreotypes and
calotype surveys of the ruins of the Near East, Egypt,
the historic architecture of Europe, and the American
Kristen Wagner
wilderness. This desire to create a permanent record
of familiar and exotic scenes and the appearance of
friends and family marked the first stage of
documentary photography.
As expressed by photographer John Thomson in the 1860s
...the photograph affords the nearest approach that can be made toward placing (the reader)
actually before the scene which is represented’
Documentary Photography, Time Life Library of Photography, pg. 16
At this early stage in photography’s development, photographs were seen as miraculous,
enabling the human eye to see things it did not always notice or would never see. Photography
took over the concerns with realism that had been developing in painting and the camera
was used mainly as a copier of nature. This faith in the camera as a literal recorder gave rise to
the belief that the camera does not lie.
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Photography and the Documentary Eye
continued
The development of new reproduction methods for photography provided impetus for the next
era of documentary photography in the late 1880s and reaching into the early decades of the
20th century. This period saw a decisive shift in documentation from antiquarian and landscape
subjects to that of the city and its crises. Once the camera had proven itself as a tool for
showing things as they were, it was inevitably thought of as a device for changing things to the
way they ought to be. In this second stage photographers discovered the camera’s power
to hold up a mirror to society and photographs could thus become social documents.
This visual comment on the joys and pains of society has, to a great extent, occupied
documentary photographers ever since.
The photographer most directly associated with the birth of this new form of documentary was
the jouranlist and urban social reformer Jacob Riis who documented the slums of New York in
his historic book How the Other Half Lives in 1890. Riis’s documentary photography was
passionately devoted to changing the inhumane conditions under which the poor lived in the
rapidly-expanding urban-industrial centers.
In the 1930s the Great Depression brought a new wave of
documentary, both of rural and urban conditions. During this
period the Farm Security Administration in the United States
enlisted a band of young photographers to document the
state of the nation during the depression. Among these were
Walker Evans, Ben Shahn, Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee,
and Carl Mydens. This generation of documentary
photographers is generally credited for codifying the
documentary code of accuracy mixed with impassioned
advocacy, with the goal of arousing public commitment to
social change. The photographers in the FSA project were
the first ever to be called documentary photographers and
their work wrote the idea of documentary photography as a
means of examining society large in peoples minds.
Dorothea Lange
Migrant Mother, 1936
During the Second World War and postwar eras, documentary photography increasingly
became subsumed under the rubric of photojournalism. This led to the development of a
different attitude among documentary photographers in the 1950s, a new generation which did
not feel bound by any mission except to see life clearly. As expressed by the photographer
Gary Winogrand:
The true business of photography is to capture a bit of reality (whatever that is) on film.
Time Life Library of Photography, pg. 164
According to photographers in this group, their work made no effort to judge but instead
to express, and they were committed not to social change but to formal and
iconographical investigation of the social experience of modernity.
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Photography: The Modern View: A Survey
As a means of artistic expression, modernism or modernist abstraction is expressed in a
number of ways. As concerns photography, modernist photography is that which is most
concerned with FORMAL matters. This approach is most clearly demonstrated in the
exhibition ...out to Alberta in the photograph Hutterite Boys, Southern Alberta by George
Webber. Like the other approaches to photography examined, modernism in
photography has its roots in movements first expressed in the field of painting.
In the early days of photography, many photographic artists,
concerned with ‘picturesque imaginings’ and trying to make
photographs appear like paintings, focused their attention on
views of nature where mood and soft atmosphere
prevailed. After World War 1, however, the modernism that
was being expressed in painting began to influence
photographic artists. By 1916 the view among
photographers had shifted to exchange pictorialist charm
for a more sharply focused view bringing elements of
cubist abstraction, stark formality, geometry and
metaphysical concerns to work. Photographic artists,
working towards a consciously aesthetic end, attempted from
WW1 to the early 1970s to invest their works with
timelessness: to transcend any ‘sense of place’ and to
concentrate attention on formal issues of line, shape, tone
and texture. This was the establishment of photography
based first on how things looked, their shape and their
form, then on their meaning both real and metaphoric.
Modernist photographs came to characterized by sharply
defined ‘straight’ photographs rather than the soft-focus
‘romantic’ images of the nineteenth century.
Paul Strand
New York
The most important early practitioners of this approach were Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946), Paul
Strand (1890-1976), Edward Weston (1886-1958) and Ansel Adams (1902-1984). Strand, who
was a follower of Stieglitz, believed that the photographic artist was a ‘researcher using
materials and techniques to dig into the truth and meaning of the world.’ (History of
Photography, pg. 132) In his work Strand looked to the commonplace as his subject matter,
seeking in everyday scenes and objects a purity of form. Edward Weston echoed this approach,
viewing the world as a source of objects that might give of themselves profoundly when
photographed, believing that his pictures ‘should be the thing itself and yet more than the thing’.
(History of Photography, pg. 134)
Paul Strand
Wall Street, 1915
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Photography: The Modern View: Modernism
in Photography continued
Many of these early modernist photographers believed in and
practiced what has been termed ‘straight’ photography which refers
to the creation of an unmanipulated image. As expressed by Edward
Weston in 1923;
(The camera) should be used for a recording of life, for rendering the
very substance and quintessence of the thing itself, whether it be
polished steel or palpitating flesh...I feel definite in my belief that the
approach to photography is through realism.
Edward Weston
Nautilus, 1927
Later photographers such as Ansel Adams, however, devoted a great
deal of time and energy in both recording and developing their
imagery to achieve the desired affect.
As early as 1922 Weston developed a technique called
‘previsualizing’ where he worked with a view camera to
conceive the final result and then controlled tones and
textures through exposures and development. This
technique was advanced to a finely tuned and scientific
means of technical and aesthetic control by Ansel
Adams. By 1942 Adams had developed previsualization
into a means of formal control called the ‘zone system’.
This method of adjusting exposure and development
allowed photographers to replace the intuition Weston had
used with measurable and controllable values that were
expressive and subjective rather than actual and allowed
for a personal interpretation which realized the early
pictorialists dream of having a painter’s finesse combined
with the perfectionalist desire to celebrate technology.
Ansel Adams
Church, Taos Pueblo, 1942
George Webber
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Art Processes - Printmaking
Various art works in the exhibition ...out to Alberta were created using print making
methods. The following is an explanation of print making as a process and the
techniques of linocut, silkscreen and lithographic print making techniques.
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Art Processes - Printmaking continued
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Art Processes - Watercolour
What follows is a general list of watercolour terms and techniques for use with beginner
watercolourists. Watercolour is used by Robert Hope in his work Bird Fence in the
exhibition ...out to Alberta.
Techniques:
Washes
The most basic watercolour technique is the flat wash. It is
produced by first wetting the area of paper to be covered
by the wash, then mixing sufficient pigment to easily fill the
entire area. Once complete the wash should be left to dry
and even itself out. A variation on the basic wash is the
graded wash. This technique requires the pigment to be
diluted lightly with more water for each horizontal stroke.
The result is a wash that fades out gradually and evenly.
graded wash
Glazing
Glazing is a similar watercolour technique to a wash, but it uses a thin, transparent pigment
applied over dry existing washes. Its purpose is to adjust the colour and tone of the underlying
wash. Be sure each layer is thoroughly dry before appying the next.
Wet in Wet
Wet in wet is simply the process of applying pigment to wet
paper. The results vary from soft undefined shapes to slightly
blurred marks, depending on how wet the paper is. The wet in
wet technique can be applied over existing washes provided
the area is thoroughly dry. Simply wet the paper with a large
brush and paint into the dampness. The soft marks made by
wet in wet painting are great for subtle background regions of
the painting such as skies.
wet in wet
Dry Brush
Dry brush is almost opposite to wet in wet techniques. Here a brush loaded with pigment
(and not too much water) is dragged over completely dry paper. The marks produced by this
technique are very crisp and hard edged. They will tend to come forward in your painting and
so are best applied around the centre of interest.
Lifting off
Most watercolour pigment can be dissolved and lifted off
after it has dried. The process involves wetting the area to be
removed with a brush and clean water and then blotting the
pigment away with a tissue. Using strips of paper to mask
areas of pigment will produce interesting hard edged lines
and shapes.
lifting off
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Watercolour Terms & Techniques continued
Dropping in Colour
This technique is simply the process of introducing a colour
to a wet region of the painting and allowing it to blend, bleed
and feather without interuption. The result is sometimes
unpredictable but yields interesting and vibrant colour
gradations that can’t be achieved by mixing the pigment on the
palette.
dropping in
Tips when painting:
– Always mix more paint than you need.
– Normally, the lighter tones are painted first and the dark tones last.
– When applying washes have all your colours ready mixed and keep the brush full and watery.
– Work with the largest brush that is practical for each part of the painting.
– When working wet in wet, don’t have the brush wetter than the paper or ugly “runbacks” will
result.
– Have tissue handy to lift off wrongly placed colour.
– Test for tone and colour on a scrap piece of paper before committing it to your painting. If
things go wrong and colour can’t be mopped straight with a tissue, it’s usually better to let the
work dry before attempting a rescue.
– When lifting off a colour, gently wet the area and immediately dab with a tissue. Do this four or
five times then let the area dry again before lifting off any more.
– Do lots of doodles–simple watercolour sketches such as trees, skies and rocks. This will build
up confidence and get you looking at subjects to study their form.
– Copy parts of a painting that appeal to you until you can get the effect.
– When practicing a passage for a painting, use the same paper that the finished work will be
painted on.
*credit: theresacerceo.wordpress.com/2009/03
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VISUAL
LEARNING AND
HANDS-ON
ACTIVITIES
Robert Hope
Bird Fence, 1982
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What is Visual Learning?
All art has many sides to it. The artist makes the works for people to experience. They in turn
can make discoveries about both the work and the artist that help them learn and give them
pleasure for a long time. How we look at an object determines what we come to know about
it. We remember information about an object far better when we are able to see (and handle)
objects rather than by only reading about them. This investigation through observation (looking)
is very important to undertanding how objects fit into our world in the past and in the present
and will help viewers reach a considered response to what they see. The following is a six-step
method to looking at, and understanding, a work of art.
STEP 1: INITIAL, INTUITIVE RESPONSE The first ‘gut level’ response to a visual presentation.
What do you see and what do you think of it?
STEP 2: DESCRIPTION Naming facts - a visual inventory of the elements of design.
Questions to Guide Inquiry:
What colours do you see? What shapes are most noticeable?
What objects are most apparent? Describe the lines in the work.
STEP 3: ANALYSIS Exploring how the parts relate to each other.
What proportions can you see? eg. What percentage of the work is background? Foreground?
Land? Sky?
Why are there these differences? What effect do these differences create?
What parts seem closest to you? Farthest away? How does the artist give this impression?
STEP 4: INTERPRETATION Exploring what the work might mean or be about.
How does this work make you feel? Why?
What word would best describe the mood of this work?
What is this painting/photograph/sculpture about?
Is the artist trying to tell a story? What might be the story in this work?
STEP 5: INFORMATION Looking beyond the work for information that may further
understanding.
What is the artist’s name? When did he/she live?
What art style and medium does the artist use?
What artist’s work is this artist interested in?
What art was being made at the same time as this artist was working?
What was happening in history at the time this artist was working?
What social/political/economic/cultural issues is this artist interested in?
STEP 6: PERSONALIZATION What do I think about this work? (Reaching a considered
response)
© Virginia Stephen
AFA Travelling Exhibition Program, Edmonton, AB. Ph: 780.428.3830 Fax: 780.421.0479 youraga.ca
Elements of Composition Tour
LINE: An element of art that is used to define
shape, contours and outlines. It is also used
to suggest mass and volume.
See: Bird Fence by Robert Hope
What types of line are there? How can you
describe line? What are some of the
characteristics of a line?
Width: thick, thin, tapering, uneven
Length: long, short, continuous, broken
Feeling: sharp, jagged, graceful, smooth
Focus: sharp, blurry, fuzzy, choppy
Direction: horizontal, vertical, diagonal, curving,
perpendicular, oblique, parallel, radial, zigzag
Now describe the lines you see in this image. Follow the lines in the air with your finger.
What quality do the lines have? How do the lines operate in the image?
The artist has created many lines of different length and direction in this painting. The straight
horizontal lines of the fence contrast sharply with the straight vertical lines seen in the fence post
and grain elevator. To break up the straight lines, the artist has included slow curving lines in the
hills and sky.
The artist has made it easy to separate the natural and man-made objects by the different kinds
of lines used. Most of the natural items are painted using curved lines while all of the built objects are shown with straight lines.
Line can also be a word used in the composition, meaning the direction the viewer’s eye
travels when looking at a picture. How does line in this image help your eye travel within
the composition?
The horizontal lines are able to pull our eye across the page while the tall vertical lines,
particularly with the grain elevator, ensure the viewer looks up to the top of the work. The
organized lines in this piece make the painting look very structured and geometric.
SPACE: Space is the relative position of
one three-dimensional object to another.
It is the area between and around objects.
It can also refer to the feeling of depth in a
two-dimensional work.
See: Dark House, Southern Alberta
by Jacques Rioux
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Elements of Composition Tour continued
What is space? What dimensions does it have?
Space includes the background, middle ground and foreground. It can refer to the distances or areas around,
between or within components of a piece. It may have two dimensions (length and width) or three dimensions
including height and depth.
What do you see in this work? What is closest to you? Farthest away? How do you know this?
In this work we see a roadway in the foreground. Our eyes then go back to the house in the midground. Finally,
the huge sky is furthest away from us and makes up the background.
In what way has Rioux created a sense of space?
The artist has chosen to use different techniques to create a sense of space. Firstly, the road getting smaller as
it goes further into the distance draws our eyes to the house and provides us with an idea of how far away the
building is to us. Finally, the endless, flat land continues on until it meets the sky, giving us the feeling of a very
distant background. Interestingly, the artist has been able to make the sky and large clouds seem to come right
over our heads, making them seem almost closer than the house in the midground.
SHAPE: When a line crosses itself or intersects with
other lines to enclose a space it creates a shape. A two
dimensional shape is one that is drawn on a flat surface
such as paper. A three-dimensional shape is one that
takes up real space.
See: Fancy Dancer by Radford Blackrider
What kinds of shapes can you think of?
Geometric: circles, squares, rectangles and triangles. We
see them in architecture and manufactured items.
Organic shapes: a leaf, seashell, flower. We see them in
nature with characteristics that are free flowing, informal and
irregular.
Static shapes: shapes that appear stable and resting.
Dynamic shapes: Shapes that appear moving and active.
What shapes do you see in this image? What shapes are positive and negative?
This image contains both geometric and organic shapes. The geometric shapes can be seen in the circles,
semi-circles and triangles on the dancer’s dress. The organic shapes are made up of the face, hands and feet
of the dancer as well as some of the more natural-looking items on the outfit such as the feathers and fringe.
The colourful dancer himself creates a positive space in the photograph while the white, empty background can
be considered negative space.
How do the shapes operate in this image?
The sharp geometric shapes seem very static in this piece, providing a contrast from the dynamic organic
shapes. This contrast keeps the painting from seeming too cluttered and allows the viewer to really break down
the ceremonial dress of the dancer. The stark difference between the positive and negative space also helps
to provide this sense of focus and clarity. Instead of choosing a detailed or coloured background
the artist has gone with plain white. This also helps to keep the work from looking too busy and
allows the artist to really highlight the different shapes and colours happening in the central
figure.
What quality do the shapes have? Does the quality of the shapes contribute to the
meaning or story suggested in the work?
The active, vibrant shapes add to the movement in the piece, creating the mood of celebration.
The repetitive, geometric shapes provide a feeling of rhythm, continuing the theme of a dance.
The organic shapes help to make the work fun and natural, showing the charisma of the dancer
and the excitement of the performance.
COLOUR: Colour comes from light that is
reflected off objects.
Colour has three main characteristics: Hue, or
its name (red, blue, etc.), Value (how light or dark
the colour is), and Intensity (how bright or dull
the colour is)
See: Orange Thirty Eight by John Will
What are the primary colours? Do you see any?
Point to them in the drawing. What secondary
colours do you see?
Colour is made of primary colours – red, yellow and
blue. Secondary colours are created from primary
colours and include green, orange and purple. This
image is made up of the primary colours – red,
yellow and blue, and secondary colours – orange,
green and purple with varying values of each hue.
Where is your eye directed to first? Why? Are there any colours that stand out more than
others?
Our eye is directed to central guitar player first because he is made up of varying values of the
same colour (blue), and because of his recognizable shape. We might then be drawn to the
‘Thirty Eight’ because it is the only place that such a bright orange is used. Finally, we can notice
the different colours in the background and the slow fade between these colours. The bright,
psychedelic colours used in this image give the print an excited mood and elude to the idea of
an energy-charged concert.
What are complimentary colours? How have they been used to draw attention?
Complimentary colours are those across from each other on the colour wheel and are placed
next to each other to create the most contrast. The artist has nearly all of the complimentary
colours working together to provide a high-intensity print. The red and green as well as the
purple and yellow colours in the background provide a sharp contrast and add to the energetic
mood of the piece. Similarly, the orange ‘Thirty Eight’ is contrasted against the blue of the guitar
player and patterned border to draw the attention of the viewer to the text and to give the letters
a neon glow.
TEXTURE: The surface quality of an object
that can be seen or felt. Texture can also be
implied on a two-dimensional surface through
mark making and paint handling.
See: Stagecoach by Paul Murasko
What is texture? How do you describe how
something feels? What are the two kinds of
texture you can think of in artwork?
Texture can be real, like the actual texture of an
object. Texture can be rough, smooth, hard, soft,
glossy etc. Texture can also be implied. This
happens when a two-dimensional piece of art is
made to look like a certain texture.
Allow your eyes to ‘feel’ the different areas within the work and explain the textures. What
kind of texture do you think the artists uses in this work? Real or implied? What about
the work gives you this idea?
The work has an implied texture. What about the work/it’s manner of creation gives you
the idea about the surface texture?
The fuzzy appearance of the grass and dirt makes the ground appear soft and natural. In
contrast, the man-made stagecoach appears much more smooth with an even colour and
obvious lines. The overall work seems slightly fuzzy and out of focus, with no really sharp edges.
Why do you think the artist chose this manner of presentation or chose to make the work
look this way?
Answers will vary. Perhaps the artist chose to make the work hazy because he believed it added
to the old-time feel of the print. It could also give the carriage a sense of speed, implying that the
coach is moving.
Reading Pictures
Grades 4-12/adults
Objectives:
The purposes of this program are to:
1/introduce participants to art and what artists do – this includes examinations of art styles; art
elements; the possible aims and meaning(s) in an artwork and how to deduce those meanings and
aims
2/ introduce visitors to the current exhibition – the aim of the exhibition and the kind of artwork found in
the exhibition.
-the artist(s) - his/her background(s)
-his/her place in art history
3/ engage participants in a deeper investigation of artworks
Teacher/Facilitator Introduction to Program:
This program is called Reading Pictures. What do you think this might involve?
-generate as many ideas as possible concerning what viewers might think ‘Reading Pictures’ might
involve or what this phrase might mean.
Before we can ‘read’ art, however, we should have some understanding of what we’re talking about.
What is art? If you had to define this term, how would you define it?
Art can be defined as creative expression - and artistic practice is an aspect and expression of a
peoples’ culture or the artist’s identity.
The discipline of art, or the creation of a piece of art, however, is much more than simple ‘creative
expression’ by an ‘artist’ or an isolated component of culture.
How many of you would describe yourselves as artists?
You may not believe it, but every day you engage in some sort of artistic endeavor.
How many of you got up this morning and thought about what you were going to wear today?
Why did you choose the clothes you did? Why do you wear your hair that way? How many of you have
tattoos or plan to get a tattoo some day? What kind of tattoo would you choose? Why.....? How many of
you own digital cameras or have cameras on cell phones? How many of you take pictures and e-mail
them to other people?
Reading Pictures continued
Art is all around us and we are all involved in artistic endeavors to some degree. The photographs we
take, the colour and styles of the clothes we wear, the ways we build and decorate our homes, gardens
and public buildings, the style of our cell phones or the vehicles we drive, the images we see and are
attracted to in advertising or the text or symbols on our bumper stickers – all of these things (and 9
billion others) utilize artistic principles. They say something about our personal selves and reflect upon
and influence the economic, political, cultural, historical and geographic concerns of our society.
Art, therefore, is not just something some people in a society do – it is somethign that affects and
informs everyone within a society.
Today we’re going to look at art - paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures – and see what art can tell us
about the world we live in – both the past, the present and possibly the future – and what art can tell us
about ourselves.
Art is a language like any other and it can be read.
Art can be read in two ways. It can be looked at intuitively – what do you see? What do you like or not
like? How does it make you feel and why? – or it can be read formally by looking at what are called the
elements of design – the “tools” artists use or consider when creating a piece of work.
What do you think is meant by the elements of design? What does an artist use to create a work of art?
Today we’re going to examine how to read art – we’re going to see how art can affect us emotionally...
and how an artist can inform us about our world, and ourselves, through what he or she creates.
Tour Program
- Proceed to one of the works in the exhibition and discuss the following:
a) the nature of the work - what kind of work is it and what exhibition is it a part of?
b) examine the work itself
– What do visitors see?
– How do you initially feel about what you see? Why do you feel this way? What do you like? What don’t you like? Why?
– What is the work made of?
– How would you describe the style? What does this mean?
– What is the compositional structure? How are the shapes and colours etc. arranged? Why are
they arranged this way?
– How does the work make them feel? What is the mood of the work? What gives them this
idea? Discuss the element(s) of design which are emphasized in the work in question.
– What might the artist be trying to do in the work? What might the artist be saying or what might
the work ‘mean’?
c) Summarize the information
• At each work chosen, go through the same or similar process, linking the work to the
type of exhibition it is a part of. Also, with each stop, discuss a different element of
design and develop participants’ visual learning skills.
At the 1st stop, determine with the participants the most important element of design
used and focus the discussion on how this element works within the artwork. Do the
same with each subsequent artwork and make sure to cover all the elements of design on
the tour.
Stop #1: LINE
Stop #2: SHAPE
Stop #3: COLOUR
Stop #4: TEXTURE
Stop #5: SPACE
Stop #6: ALL TOGETHER – How do the elements work together to create a certain mood
or story? What would you say is the mood of this work? Why? What is the story or
meaning of this work? Why?
Work sheet activity – 30 minutes
•Divide participants into groups of two or three to each do this activity. Give them 30 minutes to
complete the questions then bring them all together and have each group present one of their
pieces to the entire group.
Presentations – 30 minutes
•Each group to present on one of their chosen works.
Visual Learning Activity Worksheet * Photocopy the following worksheet so each
participant has their own copy.
Visual Learning Worksheet
Instructions: Choose two very different pieces of artwork in the exhibition and answer
the following questions in as much detail as you can.
1. What is the title of the work and who created it?
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________
2. What do you see and what do you think of it? (What is your initial reaction to the
work?) Why do you feel this way?
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
3. What colours do you see and how does the use of colour affect the way you ‘read’
the work? Why do you think the artist chose these colours – or lack of colour – for this
presentation?
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
4. What shapes and objects do you notice most? Why?
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
The Alberta Foundation for the Arts Travelling Exhibition Program-
5. How are the shapes/objects arranged or composed? How does this affect your feelings towards or about the work? What feeling does this composition give to the work?
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
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_________________________________________________________________________________
6. How would you describe the mood of this work? (How does it make you feel?) What
do you see that makes you describe the mood in this way?
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________
7. What do you think the artist’s purpose was in creating this work? What ‘story’ might he
or she be telling? What aspects of the artwork give you this idea?
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
8. What do you think about this work after answering the above questions? Has your
opinion of the work changed in any way? Why do you feel this way?
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________
9. How might this work relate to your own life experiences? Have you ever been in a
similar situation/place and how did being there make you feel?
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
Perusing Paintings:
An Artful Scavenger Hunt
In teaching art, game-playing can enhance learning. If students are engaged in learning, through
a variety of methods, then it goes beyond game-playing. Through game-playing we are trying to
get students to use higher-order thinking skills by getting them to be active participants in learning. Blooms’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, which follows, is as applicable to teaching
art as any other discipline.
1. knowledge: recall of facts
2. comprehension: participation in a discussion
3. application: applying abstract information in practical situations
4. analysis: separating an entity into its parts
5. synthesis: creating a new whole from many parts, as in developing a complex work of art
6. evaluation: making judgements on criteria
A scavenger hunt based on artworks is a fun and engaging way to get students of any age to
really look at the artworks and begin to discern what the artist(s) is/are doing in the works. The
simple template provided, however, would be most suitable for grade 1-3 students.
Instruction:
Using the exhibition works provided, give students a list of things they should search for that are
in the particular works of art. The students could work with a partner or in teams. Include a blank
for the name of the artwork, the name of the artist, and the year the work was created. Following
the hunt, galther students together in the exhibition area and check the answers and discuss the
particular works in more detail.
Sample List:
Scavenger Hunt Item
Title of Artwork
Name of Artist
Year Work Created
someone wearing a hat
a specific animal
landscape
a bright red object
a night scene
a house
*This activity was adapted from A Survival Kit for the Elementary/Middle School Art Teacher by Helen D. Hume.
An Artful Scavenger Hunt template
Scavenger Hunt Item Title of Artwork
Name of Artist
Year Work Created
Painting to Music
Painting to Music continued
Painting Music
Painting Music continued
Basic Shapes - Grades 3-5
Robert Hope
Bird Fence, 1982
Collection of the Albeta Foundation
for the Arts
Art in Action, pg. 12
Almost all things are made up of four basic shapes: circles, triangles, squares and
rectangles. Shapes and variation of shapes - such as oblongs and ovals - create objects.
Robert Hope’s painting Bird Fence in the exhibition was created by reducing objects to
their basic shapes, outlining these shapes in heavy black lines, and then filling in the
areas with solid colour - much like what is done in comic book illustrations or stained
glass windows. In this lesson students will practice reducing objects to their basic
shapes and then filling in the areas with colours ‘natural’ to the central object and
complementary to the background.
Materials:
- drawing paper
- pencil and eraser
- magazines
- paints and brushes
- mixing trays
Instructions:
youraga.ca
Basic Shapes continued - Grades 3-5
2/ Direct students to choose one object and determine the basic shapes which make up that
object.
3/ Have students draw their one object using the basic shapes which make up the object.
4/ Students to simplify their drawing further - removing any overlapping/extraneous lines so that
the object is broken into simplified shapes/forms. *see works by Jason Carter for clarification
5/ Students to decide on colour scheme for work. Review the colour wheel and the concept of
complementary colours.
- what is the dominant colour of your object? - use tints/tones of that colour to paint the object,
keeping shapes separate through the use of heavy black lines.
- what is the complementary colour of your main object’s colouring? - paint the background area
the complement of the objects colour.
Art in Action, pg. 12
Extension (for older students)
- when students have completed their first painting have them re-draw the basic shapes of their
object again, but this time have them soften the edges, change shapes and add connecting lines
where necessary so their drawing resembles the original magazine image.
- have students paint this second work using ‘natural’ colours for both their object and for the
background.
- display both of students’ drawings and then discuss.
Discussion/Evaluation:
1/ Which shapes did you use most often in your drawing(s)?
2/ Explain how identifying the basic shapes in your object helped you make the second drawing.
3/ Which of your paintings appeals to you most? Why?
youraga.ca
Makeshift Tambourines
Musical Collage
Musical Collage continued
Styrofoam Relief Prints
The following project introduces students to relief print making and is inspired by the
work Rosedale Mine by Margaret Shelton. For High School students actual lino cut plates
and tools can replace the use of styrofoam.
Styrofoam Relief Prints continued
Hand-Tinted Photographs
The following project is related to the photograph Stagecoach by Paul Murasko, found in
the exhibition ...out to Alberta.
Documentary Portraits - High School
This project is based on the various documentary photographic works in the exhibition ...out to
Alberta and the work of Dorthea Lange for the FAS project in the 1930s.
Objectives
Students will determine what information is unnecessary to a photograph for it to portray the
most powerful image.
Students will tell how they feel when seeing works from the exhibition and Dorthea Lange’s
Migrant Mother series and talk about their own lives in relation to those images.
Students will use a computer to crop an image.
Materials
Digital Camera(s) (one per student if possible)
Magazines with images of news going on today for look and talk sessions
Images from Dorthea Lange’s Migrant Mother series for discussion purposes
Mat board for cropping and displaying images
Procedure
1. Discuss with students the idea of portraiture and social documentary and straight
photography. Study images by Brian Dyson, Terry Munro, Wally Houn and George Webber
from the exhibition ...out to Alberta and by Dorthea Lange to facilitate discussion.
Focus Questions: What is a portrait? What is social documentary? In studying these images,
what factors do you think might go into a photographer’s decision to crop or not to crop an
original image? Does cropping an image make a difference in how we read/feel about the
image?
note* Dorthea Lange’s work: Lange happened upon this family by their tent in a pea pickers’
camp in California. She took six photographs of the family, starting from forty feet away, moving
closer and closer to them with each photograph. Do you think seeing this family from forty feet
away would be different from how you see them up close? Why or why not?
2. Students will take this issue of capturing social commentary and translate that into a
contemporary photograph. They will
- choose a photograph from a magazine
- have to present their photograph with information on who/what it is, why they chose it, and
what speaks to them in the piece. They will also explain how the photographer may have
decided to crop the piece and what makes it a strong/weak composition.
3. Students will then have one week to find and produce their own photograph that speaks to
‘us’ today. In their work they will explore ideas of cropping, composition, and elimination of
unnecessary information as both Bromley and Dorthea Lange did in their works.
credit: http://www.lessonplanspage.com/ArtSSCIPhotography-DortheaLangeMigrantMother912.htm
revision of above: Shane Golby
youraga.ca
Documentary Portraits - continued
Dorthea Lange, Migrant Mother
youraga.ca
Documentary Portraits - continued
Dorthea Lange, Migrant Mother (published image)
youraga.ca
Blow it Up! (Making Reality Monumental) Art 7-9
Objective:
Students will discover their environment
through using a view finder. They will
learn about the importance of framing and
composition and will explore concepts of
abstraction/abstracting from reality. They
will use found objects or images to create
an abstract painting using principles of
composition (balance, repetition, rhythm,
proportion).
Materials:
Dennis Lee
Grip, 2000
Acrylic on canvas
viewfinders
found objects/still life objects/magazine
images
pencils for sketching
heavy paper for painting (minimum size: 11 X
17 inches)
tempera paints
paint brushes
water for brushes
paint trays/pallets
Procedure:
1. Examine the painting Grip by Dennis Lee and Watering Can
with students. Discuss that abstraction can involve reducing
from reality, creating original forms, or - as seen in these works
- blowing up parts of forms to create ‘monumental’ images
2. Distribute viewfinders to students (or create them the
template supplied)
3. Have students choose from an assortment of still-life objects
or magazine images
4. Distribute paper - one sheet per student
5. Using viewfinders, have students focus on a secion/portion
of their chosen object or image and lightly draw that section to
fill their entire paper
6. Distribute painting supplies and have students paint their
composition, paying attention to such principles as value,
contrast, focus and emphasis.
Student example
Watering Can
Tempera paint on paper
Collection of AGA TREX
youraga.ca
Viewfinder Template
*Cut along the inside dotted line to create a open center area in the form below.
AFA Travelling Exhibition Program, Edmonton, AB Ph: 780.428.3830 Fax: 780.421.0479
youraga.ca
George Webber
GLOSSARY
Abstraction – A term applied to 20th century styles in reaction against the traditional European
view of art as the imitation of nature. Abstraction stresses the formal or elemental structure of a
work and has been expressed in all genres or subjects of visual expression.
Acrylic Paint – A type of paint containing pigment in a plastic polymer. Acrylics, unlike oil paints,
are water-based and thus can be diluted with water during the painting process.
Background - In a work of art, the background appears furthest away from the viewer. In a twodimensional work, the foreground is usually found at the top of the page.
Beauty – Inherent in a form. Beauty in art is often defined as being well formed and close to its
natural state.
Collage – A work of art created by gluing bits of paper, fabric, scraps, photographs or other
materials to a flat surface.
Complimentary colour – Colours that are directly opposite each other on the colour wheel, for
example, blue and orange. These colours, when placed next to each other, produce the highest
contract.
Composition – The arrangement of lines, colours and forms so as to achieve a unified whole;
the resulting state or product is referred to as composition.
Conceptual art – Where the ideas or concepts involved in the artwork take precedence over the
traditional aesthetic and material concerns.
Contemporary artists – Those whose peak of activity can be situated somewhere between the
1970s (the advent of post-modernism) and the present day.
Cool colours – Blues, greens and purples are considered cool colours. In aerial perspective,
cool colours are said to move away from you or appear distant.
Distortion – The use of incorrect or unusual reproductions.
Dynamic Shape – Shapes that appear moving and active.
Ektacolour – A line of photographic paper and chemicals created by Kodak.
Elements of Design – The basic components which make up any visual image: line, shape,
colour, texture and space.
Exhibition – A public display of art objects including painting, sculpture, prints, installation, etc.
Foreground – In a work of art, the foreground appears closest to the viewer. In a twodimensional work, the foreground is usually found at the bottom of the page.
Geometric Shape – Any shape or form having more mathematical than organic design.
Examples of geometric shapes include: spheres, cones, cubes, squares, triangles, etc.
Graphite – A natural mineral closely related to carbon. In art, graphite is used as a drawing
material often found in pencils
Gum Bichromate – A photographic printing chemical that consists of a pigment and potassium
or ammonium dichromate. The chemical can make a piece of paper light-sensitive. When the
sensitized paper is exposed to a photographic negative a positive image will appear.
Hue – A pure colour that has not been lightened or darkened.
Impressionism – An art movement in the 19th century that was concerned with capturing fast,
fleeting moments with colour, light and surface.
Linocut – A similar process to a woodcut but the artist has used a piece of linoleum instead of
wood. Because linoleum is softer and more flexible than wood it tends to be easier to
manipulate.
Medium – The material or technique used by an artist to produce a work of art.
Modernism – An artistic and cultural movement initiated by those who felt the ‘traditional’ form
of the arts were becoming outdated in the new industrialized world.
Oil Paint – A paint produced by mixing ground pigments with a drying oil.
Organic Shape – An irregular shape; refers to shapes or forms having irregular edges or
objects resembling things existing in nature.
Pastel – A mark-making tool made of a pigment and some sort of a binder. Depending on the
binder used the pastel can have different qualities and appearances.
Pattern – A principle of art, a pattern means the repetition of an element in a work. An artist
achieves a pattern through the use of colour, line, shape or texture.
Perspective – creates the feeling of depth through the use of lines that make an image appear
to be three dimensional.
Pictoralism – a movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that sought to have
photography recognized as a fine art. Pictoralist photographers manipulated their prints to
achieve a variety of effects. Romantic subjects in soft focus were common.
Picturesque – defined as an aesthetic quality marked by pleasing variety, irregularity,
asymmetry and interesting textures; for example, medieval ruins in a natural landscape.
Primary colours – The three colours from which all other colours are derives – red, yellow and
blue
Printmaking – A mark made by wetting an object with colour and pressing the object onto a flat
surface, such as a piece of paper. The designs on the original object will be replicated onto the
flat surface. Prints can usually be repeated many times by continuously re-inking the original
object.
Realism – a movement in the late 19th Century representing objects, actions and social
conditions as they actually were, without idealization or presentation in abstract form.
Representational art – Art with an immediately recognizable subject, depicted (or ‘represented’)
in ways which seek to resemble a figure, landscape or object; also called Figurative art and
ontrasted with Abstraction.
Rhythm – A principle of art indicating movement by the repetition of elements. Rhythm can
make and artwork seem active.
Romanticism – A style of art in the 18th-19th centuries filled with feelings for nature, emotion
and imagination instead of realism or reason.
Shade – Add black to a colour to make a shade. Mixing the pure colour with increasing
quantities of black darkens the original colour.
Silver Gelatin – A photographic process used with black and white films and photo-papers. A
piece of glass or film is made light-sensitive with the silver gelatin and can produce a negative
image. This can be printed off onto multiple positive pictures.
Static Shape – Shapes that appear stable or resting.
Stylization – The representation of something through using a set of recognizable characteristics.
Sublime – A characteristic of awe and wonder at an intense source of power, often in reference
to nature.
Texture – How a surface feels to the touch. There are two types of texture in an artwork – the
way the work feels and the texture implied by the artist through the use of colour, shape and line.
Tint – Adding white to a colour creates a tint. Mixing the pure colour with increasing qualities of
white lightens the original colour.
Tone – The brightness of a colour as affected by a tint or shade.
Warm colours – Yellows and reds of the colour spectrum, associated with fire, heat and sun. In
aerial perspective, warm colours are said to come towards you.
Watercolour – A painting process created by mixing powdered pigments, a binding agent and
water to produce a translucent paint.
Woodcut – A printing technique wherein a block of wood is carved with a desired image or
design, covered in ink and stamped onto a surface. The carved lines are recessed into the wood
and thus will appear white in the final print.
youraga.ca
Credits
SPECIAL THANKS TO:
The Alberta Foundation for the Arts
SOURCE MATERIALS:
Genre Painting - Understanding Paintings: Themes in Art Explored and Explained, Editors:
Alexander Sturgis and Hollis Clayson, Watson-Guptill Publications, new York, NY., 2000, pp. 194-217,
238-245
Art and Music Connections, Incredible @rt Department, http://www.incredibleart.org/files/music.htm
The Arts - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_arts
Music and Visual Art - http://www.siennasguidetomusic.com/Topics/art.html
Genre Painting - http://www.answers.com/topic/genre-painting-2
Hierarchy of genres - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchy_of_genres
Genre works - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genre_works
Genre works - http://reference.canadaspace.com/search/Genre%20works/
How to Read a Painting: Lessons from the Old Masters, Patrick De Rynck, Published by Harrn N.
Abrams Inc., New York, 2004, pp. 324-329
Genre - http://www.ansers.com/topic/genre-7
Genre Painting - http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/genres/genre-painting.htm
History of Art, 2nd Edition, H.W. Janson, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, N.J. and Harry N.
Abrams, Inc., New York, 1977
Genre Painting - http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/229297/geanre-painting
Painting Genres - http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/painting-genres.htm
Dutch Realist School - http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/genres/genre-painting-dutch-realist-school.htm
Genre works - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genre_painting
The Usborne Book of Art Skills, Fiona Watt, Usborne Publishing Ltd., London, England, 2002
Fauvism - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fauvism
History of Photography - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_photography
Documentary Photography - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_photography
HIstory of Photography, Peter Turner, Brompton Books Corporation, Greenwich, CT., USA, 1987
Documentary Photography, Time Life Library of Photography, Time Life Books, New York, 1972
Pictorial Photography - http://www.answers.com/topic/pictorial-photography-2
Pictorialism - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pictorialism
Robert Demachy - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Demachy
Ansel Adams - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansel_Adams_Gallery
The Picture History of Photography, Peter Pollack, harry N. Abrams, inc., New York, 1977
Introduction to the History of Photography, http://photographyhistory.blogspot.com/2010/10/landscape-photography-documentary-and...
Modernism - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernism
A Survival Kit for the Elementary/Middle School Art Teacher, Helen D. Hume, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.,
San Francisco, 2000
Art in Action, Guy Hubbard, Indiana University, Coronado Publishers, Inc., 1987, pp. 42-43
Music Art Collage - http://www.deepspacesparkle.com/20098/06/23/musical-medleymusic-art-collage
Credits continued
Painting Music - http://www.innovativeclassroom.com/Lesson-Plans/lessonplans.php?id=38
Tambourines - http://www.innovativeclassroom.com/Lesson-Plans/lessonplans.php?id=40
Paul Brandt - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Brandt
Corb Lund and the Hurtin’ Albertans - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corb_Lund_and_the_
Hurtin’_Albertans
Ian Tyson - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Tyson
Art, Music and Poetry - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Blake
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Doherty
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubadour
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_(1972)
This exhibition was developed and managed by the Art Gallery of Alberta for
Funding provided by the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.
Shane Golby – Program Manager/Curator
AFA Travelling Exhibition Program, Region 2
Sherisse Burke –TREX Technician
Meaghan Froh - TREX Education Assistant
FRONT COVER IMAGES:
Left: John Will, Orange Thirty Eight, 1976, Lithograph on paper, Collection of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts
Right: Roland Gissing, Untitled, n.d., Oil on canvas, Collection of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts

Out to Alberta – Education Kit

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