Emotions from Art

Finding Your Feelings
Submitted by: Matt Curless, art teacher at St. Henry High School, Kentucky.

 

Summary

This lesson is a great way for students to see the various ways that elements in art can be used to capture a feeling (or "soul") in an artwork. All you need is an overhead with images of various work that you feel represent certain feelings within the viewer (my personal favorites are Munch, Hopper, Picasso, O'Keefe, Freud and Sargent). Go through each slide (or poster), waiting about 20-30 seconds for the students to write down what they feel the painting brings out emotionally - sadness? joy? loneliness? anger?

 

After the slides are finished, go back to the beginning and have students share what they thought about each slide. Be sure to include what elements are used to bring about these feelings (i.e. pastel colors, sharp shapes, etc.)

 

I like this lesson because it not only obligates active participation of all, but is popular with students who are afraid of getting the "wrong answer."

 

Resources

 

Posters of Art with "Feeling"

• The Scream by Edvard Munch
• New York Movie by Edward Hopper
• Old Guitarist by Pablo Picasso
• Black Brook by John Singer Sargent
• Portrait of Dr. Gachet by Vincent Van Gogh

Student Art Review

The submitter of this lesson is unknown and it was submitted in very short form. I have beefed it up a bit to give it more value.

 

Title: The Critical Internet

Students are to visit the secondary school art departments link page and/or the student gallery page and begin reviewing student work from each high school listed on those pages. They will discuss the following:

Their favorite picture(s)

 

Their least-favorite picture(s)

 

Why they chose those particular pictures

 

Students will write a short report about their discussion. Once the short report is done, the student will then do a picture of their own using the same medium and style of their chosen favorite picture. Students are not to copy, but instead they will only the style and medium of the chosen work.

 

 

NOTE: This lesson was submitted in the early days of IAD when teachers had no scanners or digital cameras to take pictures of student work. Image above from Artsonia.