Taking sides in art

MATERIALS

* Color transparencies or large reproductions of paintings

* Paper

* Pencils

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Students will ...

* learn how art can make a political statement about conflicts.

* evaluate the emotional content of what they see in a painting and draw conclusions about the artist's intention.

* learn to apply their thinking to persuasive writing.

To make art history more meaningful to fourth- through sixth-graders, I pair lessons with their social-studies units. Since art reflects culture and history, finding great art for a given social-studies topic was easy--until I had to do a lesson on the Civil War.

Nevertheless, I quickly discovered that Winslow Horner got his start as a Civil War illustrator for Harper's Weekly. His first few oil paintings, including The Sharpshooter and Prisoners from the Front, depict Civil War scenes. From this beginning, a 90-minute lesson on war art evolved that fosters critical thinking about the use of emotion and propaganda in art.

CHOOSING THE PAINTINGS The fun starts when you choose the paintings to show. Because there are so many great paintings related to war, you can pick the ones you like. I use a broad variety, including pieces that are highly emotional, ones that are calm and reflective, and ones that glorify one side or the other in the conflict.

Along with Western art, I include other art from other cultures such as battle scenes from the Mayan murals at Bonampak, Egyptian prisoners of war, the Mughal art of India, and Japanese wood-block prints from the Russo-Japanese War.

I find that making color transparencies from library books works best in the classroom. Everyone can see them and you can use them later in your display.

THINKING CRITICALLY As we look at each painting, I ask the students to tell me what they see. They usually identify all the objects and people, and then I get them thinking about the probable time period and place of the conflict, using clues like the weapons, clothing and art style.

Finally, I steer them toward mood and message: How does this painting make you feel? Does this painting inspire horror, sadness, anger, pride, awe? How? What do you see in the painting that makes you feel that way? How do you think the artist feels about this war? Is the artist exaggerating to get you to feel this way of does the painting appear accurate and real? How does the artist use light and color to emphasize the message? How does the composition support the emotional content? Is scale important?

For example, in the frenzy of the Battle of Anghiari by Peter Paul Rubens (after Leonardo da Vinci), even the warriors' horses are viciously biting and kicking each other, which probably does not happen in real battles, but it certainly adds to the mood of the piece.

In contrast, Jacques-Louis David shows us an awe-inspiring Napoleon riding to battle on a too-small horse in Napoleon Crossing the St. Bernard. In Liberty Guiding the People, Eugene Delacroix glorifies France's July Revolution of 1830 with a symbolic Liberty leading the rebels (some kids will see the similarity to the Statue of Liberty without prompting).

Many of the individual works in Jacob Lawrence's series on World War II and Hiroshima show us the consequences of war for ordinary people. Winslow Horner focuses mostly on the boredom of war, all the waiting in camp that makes up much of the soldier's life.

ACTING OUT For a fun stretch-break and a visceral appreciation of the painting's mood, I ask volunteers to come up and "pose" the scene. Dramatizing the poses forces the children to really look at the composition and the body language. The kids in the "audience" help the actors arrange themselves correctly by comparing the actors' positions and facial expressions to the original artwork. The whole class participates.

To emphasize the contrast in mood, I make sure to do at least one very emotional pose, like Goya's Third of May, 1808, and a calmer one, like Winslow Homer's Prisoners from the Front. I also like doing Picasso's Guernica (see p. 22 for reproduction), including the horse and bull. At first, the kids aren't sure about this, asking "How do I pose a bull?" But, they quickly figure out how to capture the agony of the animals. I take pictures of the

poses and use them later in the display.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER After looking and discussing, each student chooses one painting to analyze in detail in a persuasive essay. Their thesis must explain either what they think the painter is trying to say or how they themselves react to the painting. Then they demonstrate that they have really examined the painting and evaluated what they saw by citing specific details to support their thesis. Younger children will typically describe the people and objects they see as evidence for their opinion, while older kids should also describe how the artist's use of color, value, scale, composition or perspective supports their thesis.

Kids usually pick their favorite, but once a student told me that he didn't like any of them. When I told him to pick the one he disliked the most and to explain why he disliked it, he ended up writing a terrific, thoughtful essay.