Lesson Plans : The Styles of Painting

1. To start the lesson you can read and comment these quotations about art of painting with the pupils.:

•        Art is the desire of a man to express himself, to record the reactions of his personality to the world he lives in.  ~Amy Lowell
• To send light into the darkness of men's hearts - such is the duty of the artist.  ~Schumann
• Art is the desire of a man to express himself, to record the reactions of his personality to the world he lives in.  ~Amy Lowell
•  Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.  ~Leonardo da Vinci
•  An artist is someone who produces things that people don't need to have but that he - for some reason - thinks it would be a good idea to give them.  ~Andy Warhol 
•  As the sun colors flowers, so does art color life.  ~John Lubbock 

 

2. Vocabulary

To revise the pupils' vocabulary ask them to divide the words into four groups :

• genres of painting,  
• styles of art, 
•  emotions, 
•  methods of painting

the list of words you can use:

  landscape, colourless daub of painting, romanticism,  water colour painting, to be made of dots, seascape, cubism, to evoke feelings, a real breath of fresh air, portrait, realism, still life, to make sb gasp, easel painting, to be depicted by transparent colours, sketch, unsurprised masterpiece, oil painting, quick brush strokes

3. Pupils' presentations of their project works:
 “Realism”, “Classicism”, “Cubbism”, “Romanticism”, “Abstractionism.”

4. Show pupils some paintings of different styles and ask them to recognise the styles of art 
(realism, classicism, cubbism, romanticism, abstractionism).

 4. Discussing of  new information :   the article from the Daily News on-line  (the article is under the lesson plan).

A) Pre-reading tasks:

• Let’s read the heading if this article. What do you think the article is about?
• Skim the text and find the names of people mentioned in it. What are they?
• What do they think about the portrait?

B)Reading the text 
You can do it any way you like : ask the best pupils to read it,  or read as a class , etc.

C) Discussion :
- What do you think about the portrait? Whose opinion is close to yours?

D)The role-play 

Ask pupils to imagine they are inside the London’s National Portrait gallery on the 11 of January. Some pupils should act as the characters from the article, others act as  journalists and interview the celebrities .

 

 

7.Make up cinqwayns about painting.

 It is a kind of poem, which consists of 5 lines (this word has French origin; cinq means five in French). The first line is a general word, the second line consists of two adjectives which describe this word, the third line includes 3 verbs on the topic, the fourth line is the main idea of your “poem” (It must consist of 3-4 words) and the last line is a synonym of the general world. Pupils  ead aloud their cinqwayns, when they  are ready.

8. You can use this poem to finish  the lesson:

FINDING BEAUTY IN ART

Value Art for what it shows you

Always seeing it with your heArt

Give the Artist his honest due

For Artist and you are not apArt

Enjoy Art like tender kisses

Flowing sweetly now to you

Dream dreams and wish wishes

Never fearing to follow through

Value Art for what it inspires in you

Always feeling it in your heArt

Living and loving according your due

Beauty found finishes creation's stArt

Beauty in Art fills the world through

Finding that beauty is Art inside you.

by: Paul Callahan and Yolanda Martin

Here you can read the atricle from Daily  News:

  The first official portrait of the Duchess of Cambridge provoked a discussion when it was shown this morning. Critics attacked the picture by Paul Emsley after it was unveiled at London's National Portrait Gallery, saying it looked 'nothing like Kate in real life'.

           

Sunday Times art critic Waldemar Januszczak called the portrait 'pretty ordinary... He made her look older than she is and her eyes don't sparkle in the way that they do and there's something rather dour about the face.‘

          Robin Simon, editor of the British Art Journal and Daily Mail art critic, said today: 'Fortunately, the Duchess of Cambridge looks nothing like this in real life.' I'm really sad to say this is a rotten portrait.‘

           Januszczak told BBC News: 'I was disappointed, to be honest. I have been waiting for it, like everybody else, with great expectation because the Duchess of Cambridge is someone who we know likes art. But I think she's been let down really by the picture. In the end, it's yet another pretty ordinary painting of a royal of the sort that we've been really churning out for the last few hundred years in Britain.'

 

The head and shoulders portrait shows the Duchess, who celebrated her 31st birthday on Wednesday, staring directly out of the picture with a ‘serious but serene expression on her face. She is wearing a bottle-green blouse and a pair of earrings that were a wedding gift.

     At first glance the Duchess looks far older than her years. There are shadows and creases under her eyes while her famous brunette locks have a strangely coppery tinge to them. Her mouth is set in a grimace rather than the promised enigmatic smile.

   

  Emsley had said: ‘The Duchess explained to me that she would like to be portrayed naturally – her natural self as opposed to her official self. She struck me as enormously open and generous and a very warm person. ‘After initially feeling it was going to be an unsmiling portrait, I think it was the right choice in the end to have her smiling – that is really who she is.’

   Kate and William went for a private viewing of the portrait this morning before it was publicly unveiled.The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were first to congratulate the artist on his work. 'I thought it was brilliant,' said the Duchess, 'It's just amazing. Absolutely brilliant.'

 

    Alastair Adams, president of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, said the picture was 'straightforward' and that Emsley had done very well with a limited timescale. Mr Adamssaid: 'It's very human - when you look at it, the full face is in front of you, you look straight into the eyes and face. 'It's quite natural, it's open, it's straightforward and very pure - it's immediate and not overly sentimental.‘

     Britain's most prolific royal portrait artist, Richard Stone, praised Emsley's painting for capturing Kate's warmth and openness. Stone, who has painted most members of the Royal Family during the past three decades, said: 'I liked it, very much so. So often with official portraits they can be rather stiff and starchy, but this has a lovely informality about it, and a warmth to it.