|
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
overview
Lesson1 | Summary
Activity Pages
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
lesson 1 | describing the
real
activity | describing abstraction & realism
In visual art, using realistic and representational or abstract
elements provides different ways of conveying an object or idea.
Traditionally, realism is associated with an accurate likeness,
where an object from life, and the representation of it in art,
could be interchangeable or easily recognizable. Abstraction presents
an image not as it exists in reality but as altered through various
lenses, such as geometric simplification in the case of the Cubists,
metaphor and symbolism in the case of the Surrealists, or gesture
and emotion in the case of the Abstract Expressionists.
The paintings of artists Elizabeth Murray
and Walton Ford provide specific examples
of realistic and abstract imagery in visual art. Introduce these
two visual artists to your students using the links above. Elizabeth
Murray’s “cartoony,” “bloopy,” colorful
shapes in the works “Bop”
and “Worm's
Eye” do not realistically depict any one thing
or idea but seen together as a composition, suggest a variety of
forms and possible interpretations. Walton Ford’s watercolors
and prints such as “A
Cabin Boy to Barbary” and “The
Forsaken” depict birds, monkeys and various plant
life in intricate detail and are more accurately described as realistic
in style. In these large-scale works Ford renders not only the colors
and textures of these animals according to nature but presents them
in realistic space. Discuss the differences between realism and
abstraction in visual art by comparing and contrasting specific
examples of Murray and Ford’s work.
To include three-dimensional work in the discussion, introduce students
to the sculptural work of Martin Puryear.
Puryear’s sculptures suggest not only timeless forms and well-crafted
objects, but his titles point to more narrative and representational
elements.
In written form, the terms abstraction and realism could also be used
to describe different literary styles. The trend towards Modernism at the
turn of the century began to change the course of representation in literature.
Authors such as Gertrude Stein and James Joyce began introducing disjunctive
and repetitive structural elements to alter more straightforward narrative
structures. Ask students to read a selected passages, chapters, or the entirety
of one of the following novels “The Making of Americans” by Gertrude
Stein and/or “Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man” by James
Joyce.
Ask students to consider the terms abstraction and realism as they are reading.
What are the abstract and realistic elements in these literary works and
how do they compare to the examples of abstract and realistic imagery they
have seen by the artists Murray, Ford, and Puryear? |
|
|
|
|
the next activity for this lesson
The Language
of Abstraction
This activity explores different approaches to the idea
of abstraction by the artists Susan Rothenberg, Hiroshi
Sugimoto, and Arturo Herrera.
Students create a visual vocabulary that inspires written and
visual narratives.
|
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
