Wednesday and Friday, January 30th and February 1st

Dear Humanities Kids,

I think I have corrected the problems with the blog; thank-you for letting me know that you were unable to access it.

If you missed class, we started by having a practice session for your test, which is scheduled for Thursday, February 7th.

We looked at the following piece by Mary Cassatt called The Bath and then discussed the composition, color, balance/harmony, movement and mood established by the piece. Remember that part of your exam on THURSDAY pertains to doing the same evaluation. Make sure you refer to the five images I have posted for you below. Review and research them in order to make sure that you have a strong understanding of the composition, color, balance/harmony, movement and mood for each. I HAVE INCLUDED A FORMER STUDENT'S RESPONSE BELOW THE IMAGE.

Elisa Wilson Wilson, 1

Mrs. Crampton

Mythology

September 22, 2001

The Bath by Mary Cassatt

The Bath by Mary Cassatt embraces the natural love between a mother and a child. Through the design elements of composition, color, balance, mood and movement one greatly appreciates Cassatt’s intent, and the viewer develops a deeper understanding for Cassatt's depiction of the mother and child.

The composition of The Bath focuses the audience’s attention on the child. The eye is immediately drawn to the child, and then to the mother. This draws attention to the emotion of the moment. Cassatt has also used circles in the piece to indicate unity and peace between the mother and child. One can see the circle in the basin, the shape of the heads, and in the circular form of the pitcher. The background of the painting appears muted or slightly fussy, which helps bring the attention to the mother and child. The overall arrangement of subjects gives the viewer a sense of peace.

The color used indicates a moment of peace. Cassette used white for the little girl to indicate her innocence and naivety. The mother appears in a stripped dress using light green, pink and white. These colors let the audience know that the moment is serene. The red colored carpet, although subtle, lets the audience know that the relationship between the mother and child is genuine.

Cassatt has created a balance in the work, as the mother and child are placed in the middle of the piece. No contention or disharmony exists here. The balance gives the viewer an understanding of harmony and relaxation, as these are the emotions experienced by the two subjects.

The movement of the piece begins first with the child. The audience sees the little girl and then the eye is drawn down toward the basin. The mother washing the child’s foot helps the audience understand the connection between the two of them. In addition, both subjects are looking in the same direction towards the child’s feet as the mother gently cleans them. This positioning helps the audience follow the gaze to the feet of the child.

The audience becomes captured by the peaceful and relaxed mood set by this piece. Cassatt clearly valued relationships, especially those among children and mothers. The mother portrays concern for the child’s well-being by securing the child in her lap with one hand, while the other hand gently caresses the girl’s foot. These actions appear natural, and help the viewer recognize the significane of the relationship.

Dear Humanities Kids,

1. Your first EXAM is scheduled for Thursday, February 7th. Prepare this way:

a. What are the Humanities?

b. Why is studying the Humanities so important?

c. Why should an "observer" learn more of the time period and artist's personal life prior to making a judgement about a piece of art?

d. Define the following terms and make sure you can apply them: Composition, Mood, Color, Balance/Unity, and Movement

e. Students will randomly draw one piece of artwork from the "hat." They will then need to evaluate the piece using the above elements. We did this in class with "The Raft of the Medusa" and "The Bath." In order to assist you with this section of the exam, I have included the pieces of artwork below. Realize that you won't know your focus until the day of the exam; however, you can easily learn more about them through some research. Remember that I am going to ask you to comment on the composition, color, mood, balance/unity and movement in the piece that you select.

"Judith and Holofernes" by Artemisia Gentileschi

"The Weeping Woman" by Pablo Picasso

"The Dead Christ" by Mantegna

"Burial of Count Orgaz" by El Greco

"Penitent Magdalene" by Georges de la Tour

Today in class we discussed the different perspectives gained from the research you did concerning each of the controversial pieces. We shared those perspectives with each other.
We then created our own Jackson Pollock pieces based upon what we learned about him in class.

HOMEWORK:
1. Locate information for TWO of the FIVE art pieces  included above. You can easily locate the information via the Internet. Focus on composition, color, mood, balance/unit and movement.
2.STUDY FOR YOUR FIRST EXAM, cute kids!

Posted by Mrs. Crampton at 5:49 AM

Thursday, January 24th, 2012

Dear Humanities Kids,

If you missed class today, we completed the following:

1. Each student was given the explanation for their homework assignment regarding the controversial piece of artwork they randomly selected last class period. If you missed me, please stop by so I can give you a detailed explanation for the essay.

2. We then reviewed the guidelines for Academic writing. Again, stop by so I can give you the handout that we used to review these rules in class.

3. We then headed for the lab, so that students go locate an additional Internet source concerning their "Artist's Intent" piece.

HOMEWORK:
1. Additional Internet source regarding your controversial piece.....5-7/page....all colors.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Understanding the Artist's Intent

Dear Humanities Students,

If you missed class today, we completed the following:

1. JOURNAL #2 entitled "Artist's Intent"

PART 1: Refer to your annotations/notations that were due today. Identify two orange annotations and two green annotations. Why did you find that particular text interesting and insightful?

 

PART2:

Consider the following two pieces of art. The first is entitled "Guenica" by Pablo Picasso. The second is entitled "Myra" by  British artist Marcus Harvey. Indicate which piece you prefer. Why do you prefer one over the other? Please include specifics in your response.

"Guernica" by Pablo Picasso

"Myra" by Marcus Harvey

Now that you've told me which one you prefer, let me give you some schema on both pieces of art. "Guernica" is an anti war piece pertaining to the Spanish civil war. Picasso painted it as an indication of the suffering to all living creatures caused by war. The following images portray the devastation Picasso was attempting to mimic.

Myra Hindley was convicted of murdering five children from 1963 to 1968 in Manchester, England. The image above of Miss Hendley was created from the hand prints of children.

 

Now that I have given you some schema on "Guernica" and "Myra", does your perspective change?

 Return to your journal entry, and discuss the change in perspective now that you have more understanding regarding the two pieces of art.

 

HOMEWORK:

1. Locate an additional Internet source for your particular piece of artwork. Please read, annotate and notate the text....5-7/page...all the colors.

 

January 16th, 2013

Dear Humanities Kids,

Do your best to NOT MISS CLASS.
"What did I miss?"
"You miss so much, cute kid."

1. We discussed your homework assignment, and then each student recorded the "official" definition for the "Humanities" and "Why studying the Humanities is so important." This was recorded on a handout given to each student. You are welcome to obtain your own upon your return to class....just look in the  make-up box when you come back.
2. We then had our first journal entry. Unfortunately, those of you that missed class, you will need to complete the entry on your own, as it involves looking at several images via the projector. Let's have you come in during a  flex session. Visit with me later.
3. We then discussed your homework assignment...See below.....


HOMEWORK:
1. Please read "What are the Arts," included below, and include 5-7 annotations on each page. If you were not in class, then copy this to a Word document and then print it off. Please place it in the "Handout" section of your notebook.

NOTE:  You were introduced to the color coding regarding your annotating and notating. Each type of notation correlates to a specific color. Please see the color key below.
 

• If you  find a section of text confusing then you would underline it using BROWN.
• If you are able to make a connection to your own life then you would underline that section of text using your PURPLE.
• Another way to annotate is by asking QUESTIONS about the text. RED is the color you will use for this annotation.
• If you come across a VOCABULARY word that you don't know use YELLOW!
• If a piece of text touches you emotionally, then BLUE is the color for that annotation.
• If a piece of writing is poetic to you, then use BLACK!
• If text gives you a different perspective then GREEN is your annotation color.
• ORANGE is the color you will use if you come across text that you find interesting.

          There really is no such thing as Art. There are only artists. One must understand that the word “art” may mean different things in different times and places. No wrong reason exists for liking a piece of art. Someone may like a landscape painting because it reminds him of home, or a portrait because it reminds him of a friend. There is nothing wrong with that. All of us, when we see a painting are bound to be reminded of a hundred-and-one things which influence our likes and dislikes. As long as these memories help us to enjoy what we see, we need not worry. It is only when some irrelevant memory makes us prejudice, when we instinctively turn away from a magnificent picture of an alpine scene because we dislike climbing, that we search our minds for the reason for the aversion which spoils a pleasure we might otherwise have had. In fact, the beauty of a picture does not really lie in the beauty of its subject matter.

The trouble with beauty is that tastes and standards of what is beautiful vary so much. For example, Figs. 1 and 2 were both painted in the fifteenth century, and both represent angels playing a lute. Many prefer the Italian work by Melosso D Forli (Fig. 1), with its appealing grace and charm, to that of his northern contemporary Hans Memling (Fig. 2). It may take a little longer to discover the intrinsic beauty of Memling’s angel, but once we are no longer disturbed by his faint awkwardness we find him quite lovable.

         What is true of beauty is also true of expression. In fact, it is often the expression of a figure in the painting which makes us like or loathe the work. Some people like an expression which they can easily understand, and which therefore moves them profoundly. When the Italian seventeenth-century painter Guido Reni painted the head of Christ on the cross (Fig. 3), he intended, no doubt, that the beholder should find in this face all the agony and all the glory of Christ’s suffering. But even if this intense expression of feeling appeals to us we should not, for that reason, turn away from works whose expression is perhaps less easy to understand. The Italian painter of the Middle Ages who painted the crucifix (Fig. 4) surely felt as sincerely about this event as Reni.

       Most people like to see in pictures what they would also like to see in reality. This is quite a natural preference. We all like beauty in nature, and are grateful to the artists who have preserved it in their works. For example, when the Flemish painter Rubens made a drawing of his little son (Fig. 5), he was quite proud of his cherubic appearance. He wanted us to admire the child. But this bias for the attractive and engaging subject is likely to become a stumbling-block if it leads us to reject works which represent a less appealing subject. The great German painter Albrecht Durer certainly drew his mother (Fig. 6) with as much devotion and love as Rubens felt for his chubby child. His truthful study of careworn old age may give us a shock which makes us turn away from it, and yet, if we fight against our first repugnance we may be richly rewarded, for Druer’s drawing in it tremendous sincerity is a great work.

         Most new-comers to art are often brought up against another difficulty. They want to admire the artist’s skill in representing the things they see. What they like best are paintings which “look real.” This is an important consideration. The patience and skill which go into the faithful rendering of the visible world are indeed admirable. Great artists of the past have devoted much labor to works in which every detail is carefully recorded. Durer’s watercolor study of a hare (Fig. 7) is one of the most famous examples of this loving patience. But who would say that Rembrandt’s drawing of an elephant (Fig. 8) is less skillful because it shows fewer details? Indeed Rembrandt was such a wizard that he gave us the feel of the elephant’s wrinkly skin with a few lines of his chalk.

       Finally, it is not sketchiness that mainly offends people who like their pictures to look “real,” but that they are repelled by works which they consider to be incorrectly drawn, particularly when they belong to a more modern period when the artist “ought to have known better.” As a matter of fact, there is no mystery about these distortions of nature about which we still hear complaints in discussions on modern art. Everyone who has ever seen a Disney film or a comic strip knows all about it. We know that it is sometimes correct to draw things otherwise than they look, to change and distort them in one way or another. Those who enter Disney’s enchanted world do not go to his shows armed with the same prejudices they like to take with them when going to an exhibition of modern painting. But if a modern artist draws something in his own way, he is apt to be thought a bungler who can do no better. Whatever we may think of modern artists, we may safely credit them with enough knowledge to draw “correctly.” For example, Fig. 9 shows a sketch by the famous modern painter Pablo Picasso. Surely no one could find fault with his charming representation of a mother hen and her fluffy chickens. But in drawing a cock (Fig. 10), Picasso was not content with giving a mere rendering of the bird’s appearance. He wanted to bring out its aggressiveness, its cheek and its stupidity. In other words, he resorted to a caricature. But what a convincing caricature it is!

       

          There are two reasons, therefore, which we should always ask ourselves if we find fault with the accuracy of a picture. One is whether the artist may not have had his reasons for changing the appearance of what he saw. The other is that we should never condemn a work for being incorrectly drawn unless we have made quite sure that we are right and the painter is wrong. We are all inclined to be quick with the verdict that “things do not look like that.” We have a curious habit of thinking that nature must always look like the pictures we are accustomed to. It is easy to illustrate this by an astonishing discovery which was made not long ago. Generations have watched horses gallop, have attended horse-races and hunts, have enjoyed paintings and sporting prints showing horses charging into battle or running after hounds. Pictures and sporting prints usually showed them with outstretched legs in full flight through the air. The French nineteenth-century painter Gericault painted them in a famous representation of the races at Epsom (Fig. 11). About fifty years later, when the photographic camera had been sufficiently perfected for snapshots of horses in rapid motion, these snapshots proved that both the painters and their public had been wrong all the while. No galloping horse ever moved in the way which seems so ‘natural’ to us. As the legs come off the ground they are moved in turn for the next kick-off (Fig. 12). If we reflect for a moment we shall realize that the movement could happen no other way. And yet, when painters began to apply this new discovery, and painted horses moving as they actually do, everyone complained that their pictures looked wrong.

        Admittedly, taste in art is something infinitely more complex than taste in food and drink. It is not only a matter of discovering various subtle flavors; it is something more serious and more important. After all, the great masters have given their all in these works, they have suffered for them, sweated blood over them, and they have the right to ask us to understand what they wanted to do. One never finishes learning about art. There are always new things to discover. Great works of art seem to look different every time one stands before them. They seem to be as inexhaustible and unpredictable as real human beings. It is an exciting world of its own with its own strange laws and it own adventures. Nobody should think that he knows all about it for nobody does. Nothing, perhaps, is more important than this: that to enjoy these works we must have a fresh mind, one which is ready to catch every hint and respond to every hidden harmony; a mind, most of all, that is willing to discard habits and prejudices.

Gombrich, E.H. The Story of Art. Prentice Hall Publishing. Englewood Cliffs:CA. 1972.

Monday, January 7th, 2013

Dear Humanities Kids,

If you missed class today, we completed the following:

1. We reviewed Hinduism and then started discussing Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity and we had a brief review regarding Islam. If you missed class, PLEASE visit with someone that was in class, in order to obtain the information.

YOU WILL HAVE A QUIZ ON WEDNESDAY COVERING THE WORLD RELIGIONS!

HOMEWORK:
1. Prepare for your quiz covering the world religions.
2. Remember that your final exam is on Friday....work on this, my young friends! 

I hope the BREAK is going well!

Dear Humanities Kids,

I hope that you have enjoyed your holidays. I wanted to remind of you some important deadlines and give you the question for your final exam, which is scheduled for Friday, January 11th, 2013! We will review the question when you return on Thursday.

If you were taking a Humanities course 400 years in the future, what aspects from the 20th-21st regarding literature, art, architecture, religion and philosophy would you study?

Remember that your illuminated lettering or stained glass window assignment is due on Thursday. 

I look forward to hearing about your holiday and seeing you on Thursday.
Happy New Year,
Crampton

Friday, December 14th, 2012

Dear Humanities Kids,

For those of you that attended the field trip, I hope you had a wonderful time. I thoroughly enjoyed myself! Remember that our guest speakers, Shams Islam and Chris Fucile, will be attending class on Tuesday.

For those of you that miss class on Friday, we completed the following:

1. Quest covering the Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic, and Islamic eras was given. Students will correct the quiz on Tuesday.

2. Students were given a new assignment concerning the making of their own illuminated letter.  For those of you not in class, please make sure you collect the explanation and the paper that you can use for your work upon your return. The assignment is due on THURSDAY, JANUARY 3rd!

HOMEWORK:
1. Please have 10 questions prepared (5 for Islam and 5 for Aetheism) for our guest speakers. You may hand write your questions, although I would prefer them typed.

2. CER #2 is DUE ON TUESDAY!