IMPRESSIONISM If the teacher requests 3 lessons instead of 4, please skip Monet.  Lessons in 1st and 6th grades. 

The Terrace At Sainte-Addressee 1867 by Claude Monet

  1. How is this painting different from The Harvesters?  If we call The Harvesters a landscape, what do you think artists call this type of painting? (SEASCAPE)
  2. What things are in the foreground?  Middleground?  Background?  What happens to the detail in the close-up things?
  3. What is the weather like?  The season?  What makes you think so?
  4. What things are moving?  Still?  What noises do you hear?
  5. Where is the sun?  How do you know?
  6. What is the first color you notice in the painting? What are some of the other colors?  Where is the red?  What is the red doing?
  7. What are some of the other
  8. What kind of people are these?
  9. How does this painting make you feel?

Nympheas by Claude Monet

  1. What do you think this is?  (Narration: Monet had a water lily pond built at his house and surrounded it with poplar trees and bamboo.  He loved to go there and paint.  He painted a whole series of water lily pictures on large panels.
  2. Do some of the colors overlap?  (Narration: Old-style artists would mix paint on a palette to get the color they wanted before putting it on the canvas. The impressionistic artists would mix colors right on the canvas by putting one color of paint on top of another color or they would blend the colors.)
  3. Which of the colors are quiet?  Which are loud?
  4. How does this painting make you feel?
  5. Which picture do you like best and why?

Biography

Claude Monet was a French painter.  He was born in Paris In 1840 and lived to be 86 years old.  Monet was a leader of a new art form called "impressionism."  Impressionism got its name when an art critic told Monet that his paintings looked as if they were painted very quickly and looked like an impression of what he saw rather than a finished work of art.  Before Monet, a painter of an outdoor scene might set up his easel and make a sketch (or study) of what he saw.  Then he would take these sketches back to his studio and rework the painting putting in a lot more detail.  Brueghel probably painted like this.  It is not that Monet did not know how to paint like the Old Masters. Rather, he chose not to.  He wanted to try something new.  He wanted to let his first Impression of an outdoor scene stand as a completed work of art.

Craft

Pastel chalk drawing, impressionistic style.  OR

Create an Impressionistic landscape/garden scene

  1. Distribute Oatmeal paper (or construction paper)
  2. Put your name and section on the back of paper.
  3. Have several cups of white tempera on table. Each child may have his/her own water cup
  4. Lightly draw landscape/garden with white chalk (or pencil)
  5. Paint area (fist size/baseball size) with white tempera
  6. Dip chalk into water dish and draw into the wet paint. If paint dries - brush on a bit more.
  7. Blend some related colors together for interest within shapes.
  8. Notice what happens to the colors as they mix with the paint.