Picture Study: Vincent van Gogh
Six weeks passed, and we had completed our study of Millet. The boys were sorry to leave the peasant painter, but they were excited about our next artist. The choice had been an easy one. I asked my brothers which they wished to study next, and their answer happily coincided with mine: Vincent van Gogh*—whose chief fascination for them was that he fastened candles to his straw hat in order to paint after dark. “Won’t he catch on fire?” they keep asking me. *(I might have encouraged their interest by constantly exclaiming, “Oh! Van Gogh did a painting of this Millet drawing!” ;-)
Van Gogh is an enormously popular artist, so I had plenty of material from which to choose. For biography we have Vincent van Gogh, written by Eileen Lucas and illustrated by Rochelle Draper; and, for a closer look at Arles, The Yellow House, written by Susan Goldman Rubin and illustrated by Jos. A. Smith. For quality art prints we have Van Gogh’s Van Goghs. We are going to conclude our picture study with the appropriate project from MaryAnne F. Kohl’s handbook Discovering Great Artists: Hands-On Arts for Children in the Style of the Great Masters. Supplementary material (for my own reference, and for the boy’s free browsing) includes A Weekend with Van Gogh by Rosabianca S. Venturi, and What Makes a Van Gogh a Van Gogh? from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The usual predicament of planning a picture study is choosing only six representative artworks! Afterwards, as with our Millet study, I will let the boys browse through the art book to see other paintings by Van Gogh. (Previewing art-books before handing them to children is always a good idea. Post-its are wonderful for covering anything inappropriate without damaging library property.)
The following schedule is a basic outline of what pages I want to read and what paintings I want to study each week. If you are unfamiliar with the purpose and method of picture study, scroll down to see a sample from my lesson plans.
Week One:
Tuesday—Picture Study: The Potato Eaters.
Friday—Take turns reading p. 7-15 (Vincent Van Gogh by Eileen Lucas).
Week Two:
Tuesday—Picture Study: Self-Portrait as an Artist.
Thursday—Take turns reading p. 16-23 (VVG).
Week Three:
Tuesday: Picture Study: Cafe de Nuit.
Thursday—Take turns reading p. 25-35 (VVG).
Week Four:
Tuesday—Picture Study: The Bedroom at Arles.
Thursday—Take turns reading p. 36-47 (VVG).
Week Five:
Tuesday—Picture Study: Vincent’s Chair with His Pipe and Ganguin’s Armchair
Thursday—Read and narrate The Yellow House by Susan Goldman Rubin.
Week Six:
Tuesday—Picture Study: Starry Night
Thursday—Art Activity: Discovering Great Artists, p. 57
Sample Lesson Plan (Grades 2 and 4)
OBJECTS
•To further the children’s interest in the art of Vincent van Gogh.
•To show the influence of the Impressionist and Pointillist movements on his artistic development.
•To tell how van Gogh often used himself as a model when he could afford no other.
•To increase their powers of attention and observation.
•To cultivate worthy thought and a keen sense of beauty.
MATERIALS
•Large, high-quality prints of Self-Portrait as an Artist. [You can download a high-resolution image of this picture at Wikipedia.]
•Paper, art materials, and a mirror.
LESSON
Step I.—Give the the children the picture Self-Portrait as an Artist to look at, and ask them to find out all they can about its subject.
Step II.— After three or four minutes, take the picture away and see what the children noticed. (Say, ‘Tell me about the picture.’) It will probably be unnecessary to bring their attention to the bright colors (contrasted with The Potato Eaters), and the use of dashes—influences from the Impressionists and of Seurat’s new Pointillism. [My students were already familiar with Seurat and his technique, so we went further into this subject than you may wish to do. It is enough to note the use of colorful dots and dashes in this painting.]
Step III.—Let them read the title. See that they understand the term ‘self-portrait.’ Van Gogh was a prolific self-portraitist, completing over thirty reproductions of his own brooding face. Because he was poor and could seldom afford models, van Gogh kept in practice by painting what he saw in a mirror.
Step IV.— Let the children choose from the various art supplies (paint, pastels, etc.) and, with the aid of the mirror, create their own self-portraits. Encourage them to use the bright colors and dashes we see in van Gogh’s work.
Optional—Those with a computer with internet access may wish to show the children this YouTube video visually comparing van Gogh’s self-portraits. (Wikipedia has a a gallery of van Gogh’s self-portraits.)
Tuesday, November 22, 2011