Teaching the History of Art
Good art shows us how difficult it is to be objective by showing us how differently the world looks to an objective vision.
——Iris Murdoch
In the teaching of art history two aspects are important. The first is to teach the chronology of art history. This is important in order that the student have a sense of when and where an object was produced; placing a piece of art in a cultural context helps reveal why it was produced. Form, medium and style are all products of place and time. A chronology of art, however, does not assume an evolution of art. Though art through the ages does differ according to the technology available, the sophistication of the form art takes does not determine the sophistication of the message. Art is not a history of the progress of the technology; it is a symbolic medium of myth, thought and religion.
Therefore the second aspect of teaching the history of art is to help students learn to read and “decode” the symbology of art. This involves comparing works of all eras and cultures according to their symbols and messages. It involves looking closely at the “pictures,” noticing similarities of symbols and making connections. Though of course we will not be able to make a comprehensive survey of the art of each culture and era, we will look at a limited amount of art from most cultures and most eras. We will look at great art, talk about what we see, place it on a time line and on a map, and when we have finished our chronology and “grammar” of art history, we will compare and contrast the symbols and meanings and trace the themes and motifs of art regardless of origin.
The following is a general outline of the topics we will cover:
ANCIENT WORLD
Prehistoric, Egypt, Greece, Roman
NON-EUROPEAN WORLD
India, China, Americas, Africa, South Pacific
THE MIDDLE AGES
Early Christian, Byzantine, Icons, Celtic, Medieval Art, Romanesque, Giotto, Gothic
RENAISSANCE
15th Century Italy, Fra Angelico, Botticelli, 16th Century Italy, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, Outside Italy, Van Eyck, Bosch, Bruegel, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Baroque/Rococo
MODERN WORLD
Nineteenth Century, Romanticism, Gericault, Delacroix, Realism, Millet, Daumier, Courbet, Impressionism, MonetCezanne Gauguin, Van Gogh, Seurat, Twentieth Century, Fauves, Matisse, Cubism, Picasso, Fantasy, Chagall
COMPARATIVE ART HISTORY (tentative subjects)
Portraiture Through the Millennia The Omphalos: the navel of the world, The Door God Mary, Star of the Sea
Teaching Drawing
to Grammar and Logic Stage Students
Just as in any other subject that is part of the traditional “trivium” of learning, the teaching of art follows the same steps. A child in the grammar stage needs to be taught the “grammar” of art. Basic drawing techniques are not subjective. They, like any other skill (writing, reading, playing an instrument) must be taught. If children are to gain self-confidence from their drawings, they must be given the opportunity to produce skillful drawings.
Drawing can be divided into two groups — drawing the mass of an object (i.e. an orange has the basic shape of a circle, a high-rise has the basic shape of a rectangle) and drawing its lines. Mass drawing (drawing with basic shapes) teaches students to see objects as a collection of individual shapes. It helps break down more complicated subjects into simple drawing problems thus making them easier to draw. And when value and color are being taught, drawing objects in terms of groups of values and colors makes learning these ideas much more accessible. The basic object of line drawing is to see where the edges of the object lie. This is easiest to teach using a grid. Grids provide an objective tool for outlining drawings and help students disassociate what they think they see from what is really there.
Value is the measure of how light or dark an object is. This is one of the key concepts of learning about shading, shadows and color. Realistic drawing demands that students learn to detect the values of the objects they draw. We will reproduce a value chart and draw many value sketches (small basic drawings colored in black and white to show simply how light or dark an object is in relation to another).
Color has two basic aspects that must be studied — intensity (or hue-what color an object is and how “bright” or “dull” that color is) and value (how dark or light a color is in relation to the black and white value scale). We will study and make basic color wheels and color charts to learn how colors mix and relate. Students will also color drawings of master paintings with the object of matching colors to learn the nuances and value of color.
Students will learn basic perspective (how to draw something so that it looks far away or close up) and proportions. Using basic anatomy and proportions students will also learn to draw the human figure. This is one of the more difficult drawing subjects, but not out or range for young students. We will study basic anatomy and basic proportions of the head and body so they will be able to accurately render a portrait or figure.
Though they seem ethereal these methods are all objective and therefore can be grasped by grammar-stage students. All drawing projects for this stage will be clearly defined (they will consist of copying drawings from grids, “follow me” step-by step drawings etc . . . ) to allow for the most successful drawings. Though this seems like a very uncreative process, like teaching the abc’s and phonics it is absolutely essential in teaching young artists how to objectively see the phenomena in the world around them and accurately reproduce it on paper. And it is the only way to instill confidence in the drawings that they produce. However the projects will, of course, be fun and the subject matter geared toward age and interest.
The next step, the Logic stage will be entered into naturally by most logic-stage students once they receive the grammar-stage instruction. While most younger students will, for a while longer, need explicit projects and explicit instructions, the logic-stage students will take the tools (once he/she has mastered them) and apply them to drawing problems of their choice.
The following is a brief outline of the
drawing skills to be covered:
Mass Drawing - (Drawing with Basic Shapes)
Line Drawing - (Drawing with a Grid)
Value - (How light or dark an object is)
Color- (Intensity/Hue)
Proportions/Perspective
Anatomy/Drawing the Human Figure