Fine Art Friday

Why is the Mona Lisa Famous?


According to Wikipedia:

The painting was not well-known until the mid-19th century, when artists of the emerging Symbolist movement began to appreciate it, and associated it with their ideas about feminine mystique. Critic Walter Pater, in his 1867 essay on Leonardo, expressed this view by describing the figure in the painting as a kind of mythic embodiment of eternal femininity, who is "older than the rocks among which she sits" and who "has been dead many times and learned the secrets of the grave".

The painting's increasing fame was further emphasized when it was stolen on August 21, 1911. The next day, Louis Béroud, a painter, walked into the Louvre and went to the Salon Carré where the Mona Lisa had been on display for five years. However, where the Mona Lisa should have stood, he found four iron pegs.

Béroud contacted the section head of the guards, who thought the painting was being photographed. A few hours later, Béroud checked back with the section head of the museum, and it was confirmed that the Mona Lisa was not with the photographers. The Louvre was closed for an entire week to aid in the investigation of the theft.

On September 6, avant-garde French poet Guillaume Apollinaire, who had once called for the Louvre to be "burnt down", was arrested and put in jail on suspicion of the theft. His friend Pablo Picasso was brought in for questioning, but both were later released.[5] At the time, the painting was believed to be lost forever. It turned out that Louvre employee Vincenzo Peruggia stole it by entering the building during regular hours, hiding in a broom closet and walking out with it hidden under his coat after the museum had closed. Con-man Eduardo de Valfierno master-minded the theft, and had commissioned the French art forger Yves Chaudron to make copies of the painting so he could sell them as the missing original. Because he did not need the original for his con, he never contacted Peruggia again after the crime. After keeping the painting in his apartment for two years, Peruggia grew impatient and was caught when he attempted to sell it to a Florence art dealer; it was exhibited all over Italy and returned to the Louvre in 1913...

...Prior to the 1962-63 tour, the painting was assessed for insurance purposes at $100 million. According to the Guinness Book of Records, this makes the Mona Lisa the most valuable painting ever insured. As an expensive painting, it has only recently been surpassed (in terms of actual dollar price) by Gustav Klimt's Adele Bloch-Bauer I, which was sold for $135 Million on 19 June 2006. Although this figure is greater than that which the Mona Lisa was insured for, the comparison does not account for the change in prices due to inflation -- $100 million in 1962 is approximately $670 million in 2006 when adjusted for inflation.

Useful website

This website has a list of interview questions for teachers, but it doesn't specify for art. I would add a few to the list of questions:

How will you support the local standardized test preparation?
How would you manage on a cart/in a shared classroom/in a non-art room (without sinks, etc.)?

and for the questions for the interviewee to ask:

Does the local community support the arts?
Has the art department changed in the last few years?

Fine Art Friday

Fine Art Friday is a blogging trend right up my alley.

Dave McKean is one of my favorite artists. He gained popularity with his covers for Neil Gaiman's comic The Sandman. In addition to being a terrific illustrator, he writes, has produced films, and creates incredible tarot decks. The first image that ever got my attention was the cover for "The Sound of Her Wings," the first Sandman comic to feature Death. I was at the Words and Pictures comic book museum in Northampton, MA. The cover is actually painting/sculpture about 36"x48" with artificial ivy tacked around the edges. It took my breath away. This reproduction does not do it justice:

Quiz Time

One of the school districts I'm applying to asks 3 questions on the job application:

1. Please describe your understanding of or background in the development of a standards - based classroom environment?

Visual art is such a broad field that it is often difficult for teachers to know where to begin. Massachusetts statewide art frameworks help to give specific goals and focus. They target areas of student learning such as: “Standard 2: … Students will demonstrate knowledge of the elements and principles of design,” but allow for teachers to decide how to creatively apply those elements and principles. I use the standards in conjunction with "Teaching for Understanding" to develop essential questions: "How do artists show emotion in their artwork?" or, "What makes great art great?"

In each of my lessons I also use the standards to assess students objectively. For example, I can look for how they use line as a design element in a drawing or the principle of balance in a painting. These objectives are posted daily for students to see. They help me to effectively create assessment rubrics, and the standards addressed in each project are displayed in the classroom or the hallway with the finished work.

2. Please describe your skills and experience in the integration of technology into the school curriculum?

Technology is an essential tool that allows students and teachers to explore the world without ever leaving the classroom. I carry my laptop with me daily to facilitate lesson planning, grading, and communication with staff, parents, and art teachers around the globe. My students use the internet to gather images for classroom use as well as to research art and artists. An LCD projector is frequently in use to display images of artwork and share web resources. One such site is The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s that allows students to zoom in on artwork as though you were in the galleries. Other technology, such as image-making software, digital cameras and video recorders, allow students who may otherwise not connect with art to gain access. In the art classroom, I use technology to open as many doors as possible.

3. What values and experiences would you bring to support the Nxxxxx Public Schools in becoming an active anti-racist school system?

My students are often surprised when, on their first day in my classroom, I tell them I’m not white. To them, my fair skin is a clear indicator of my race. “In the art room,” I explain, “there are no such categories. Not only is my skin a multitude of shades and hues ranging from pink to brown, but my ancestry is just as mixed.” I tell them that my grandfather is Native American: a Wampanoag tribal elder, as is my mother, and I too will be one in time. I have a mixture of German, Jewish, Irish, Portugese, Cape Verdean, and Wampanoag, among other things running through my veins. Then I tell them that I have something in common with all of them as well, and I stick out my tongue at them. “We’re all pink on the inside,” I say, “and we all treat each other as equals in this classroom."

another cool site

Alliance for Excellent Education

Cool Blog

This blog is a pretty neat resource for art ed lesson plans.

Attendance

How do you make kids come to school and then stay there? This is one of the big questions we ask at my school.

One of my biggest challenges with urban high schooler is attendance. Today I had 5 students in my 3rd period class. The class officially has 10 students enrolled (since we work with at-risk kids, our cap is technically 15, though some classes are over-enrolled), and 50% attendance is typical.

The problem has many layers:

Why aren't they coming in?
What are they up to when they are not here?
How do they keep up with classes that they miss?
How do we instruct a group of students that changes from day to day? (This brings a whole new meaning to differentiated instruction!)
How do we deal with students who go over on their absences without throwing them out of school and losing half of our population?

So far, we haven't found a foolproof solution. Right now it's just getting worse and worse.

The dark side of standardized testing

One of my favorite webcomics is "Irregular Webcomic" by David Morgan-Mar. Today's comic struck my teacher's funny bone:



In his notes he says, "If you ever wonder about the eventual outcome of the modern trend of making sure children don't fail high school by making the passing grades low enough that they can all manage to scrape through, now you know. Someone, somewhere, decided that having kids fail looked bad, so to boost the statistics they lowered the standard rather than giving the teachers the resources and remuneration they deserve."

The full post is here:
http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/1512.html

I have to praise you like I should...

My husband and I both have personal journals at livejournal.com. Today he posted a link to this article in New York Magazine which discusses the merits of praising children. In short, it says praising children for their effort is much more effective than lauding them for being smart.

The principal at my school is constantly telling us to "flood the students with praise," but has never been this specific about what kind of praise. However, I always tell my students that I grade them based on effort rather than how attractive their artwork is. I'm much more impressed by a student who works hard than one who has "natural talent."

NAEA conference, day 2

Between packing and dragging my luggage across Manhattan, I didn’t make it to see Daniel Pink at 9am, which was my intention. I’ll have to pick up his book and read it. I arrived at the conference at 9:45, dropped off my bags and got swept into the exhibit halls with the crowd of freebie-crazed art teachers. I spent an hour wandering around and getting seconds of my favorite freebies from yesterday. I couldn’t find the rolling suitcase vendor I was looking for, but I did run into the MassArt rep that I know. I chatted with her for a while because I wanted to find out what I could do to help one of my students get in. (He’s really terrific: does graffiti, tattoos, and wonderful drawings with a very distinct style. He takes any material I throw at him and makes something gorgeous and distinctive.)

While we were chatting, another MA teacher wandered up and made some inquiries about her son’s prospects. She mentioned that he was also looking at Hampshire and Bard Colleges, and my friend said “I went to Hampshire!” I chimed in that I had been there too (though it was 20 years later) and the three of us spent a while talking about colleges. The teacher/mother and I ended up wandering off to the Edible Art presentation together, chatting about local art schools on our way.

The presentation was given by two MA teachers, both of whom I know well. It was a very useful set of instructions on how to set up your own Edible Art Contest. It contained some of the most useful content I’d seen at the conference, and I made sure to tell them that. I think it would be fun to do, but I’m not sure it would work at my school. Only a few kids would participate, and the others would just want to eat the art. I once held a pumpkin contest with K-8 students, and a lot of the techniques they suggested, like giving superlatives (“most creative”) instead of 1st place, etc, are things that I did. It made me feel like I’m using good teaching practices, especially since one presenter was the former MAEA president, and the other was the current one!

Unfortunately, it was the last session I attended. The next batch wasn’t until 2pm, and I wanted to be on a 2:20 bus. I hugged my friends, packed up my stuff, and headed for Port Authority…and my 8-hour trip home is a tale for another blog, another time.

Segregation?

I got an alumni update email from Tufts, and was disappointed to find that I had missed a lecture by the educator and social activist Jonathan Kozol. I read my first book of his, There are no Children Here when I was taking a class entitled "The Child and the City" back at Hampshire in about 1994. The class was about the plight of the urban children, and was one of my first education classes.

Kozol's lecture at Tufts addressed the topic “Still Separate, Still Unequal: The Continuing Decapitation of Potential in America’s Apartheid Schools.” He makes a strong case for calling out US schools for continuing to segregate.

As a public school teacher in an urban district, working primarily with "at-risk" students, I have to say I agree that there still is segregation, though it is not solely based on race. It is, however very clearly socioeconomic. My school is not the "dumping grounds for poor black boys" that the district fears it is or will be, but it is almost entirely non-white, and almost entirely poor students. And our faculty is mostly educated, white women. It does make you think.

The article about Kozol's talk is here: Public shame:The way America pays for education puts a price tag on our kids’ heads.

NAEA Conference

I am attending the National Art Education Association conference in New York. Today I spent the morning in the exhibition halls, being plied with free goodies from vendors in the hopes that I will order their products for my classroom. In the afternoon I attended some presentations.

The first was a session on teaching 3D arts at the elementary level. All of the lessons were designed to be completed in 1-2 45-minute sessions. This is ideal for schools where you meet with your students once a week for 12 weeks, or if you are "art on the cart." I wish this presentation had been longer, because I would have liked to see their k-5 lessons in more detail. Fortunately, I have an email address to request a copy of the powerpoint presentation.

The next was, in theory, a presentation on "discussing controversial issues/art with children" but was a poorly organized lecture at best. The presenters were university instructors. They showed a bunch of controversial images out of context, discussed how their art ed students had come up with a list of potential lessons and hypothetical tactics for dealing with reluctant parents and administrators, and then focused on a single anecdotal experience when supporting the display of a college student's painting of a nude woman with her hand over her genitals (entitled "Women Have Balls, Too) against complaints from other college students. I know college students are young, but they are NOT children, and this presentation was not at all useful.

Finally, there was a presentation by two MAEA people that I know: the former MAEA president, and one of my cooperating teachers from my student teaching in Winthrop. They spent 1/2 an hour talking about how they put together a display of postcards from students across Massachusetts, using clear pocketed shower curtains that hold 4x6 index cards. The display method really is cool, but didn't need to be discussed for 30 minutes. It was a tad overkill. The best piece of info I got was where to obtain those shower curtains.

The biggest problem I had all day was the same as last year in Chicago: the conference rooms are too small. I couldn't get into some rooms, and the one room I did get into I never left because it took me an hour to get in and finally get a seat. So I just stayed put and waited to see what presenter would show up next. All in all, I didn't do too badly with that method: 2 out of 3 ain't bad.

After the presentations, I stopped at a social gathering and joined a tableful of teachers from all over the country. We chatted for a while and I got some advice on my job search, some much needed moral support, and a little bit of teachertalk. With some refreshments to sustain me, I felt ready to hit a few more presentations. By happy accident, I ended up in a Museum Educators' session about summer camp programs at the Taft Museum in Cincinatti, which has an interesting way of including collections acquisition for their elementary art camp attendees. One of their lessons asked the question "What objects define your culture, family, etc." The idea was to have a collection of items, like urns represent a period Greek history. They expected the kids to bring in iPods and cell phones, but instead got photos of family and friends. It was an unexpected surprise.

Then I went to another presentation by a teacher who works with middle school students to create "collaborative collage mandalas" that are influenced by 9/11. That was really interesting, and I think I'd like to try his lesson: What do you want the world to look like by 2020? Start with yourself and work outward to family, community, etc. He also said he has 90 minute blocks with his middle schoolers, which really surprised me.

All in all, my one full day at the conference was pretty productive. Tomorrow I get to spend a few more hours, and then I must go home. But already it was worth the bus ride here and back.