1. Reading Art and the art of reading
Monet, Claude. Wisteria Oil on canvas. Musée Marmottan, Paris.
Reading Art and the art of reading
Rachael Sanford
Stephanie Tatum
Harrison High School Kennesaw, GA (678)

2. Adapted from Bottom Line/Personal. 1 April 2007. 13-14.
The Power of Color
Color can make you feel good or feel sick. It can tire you or increase your productivity. Color is perceived differently depending on your age, mood and mental health. Savvy packaging designers use color to suggest product attributes, such as cleanliness, flavor and freshness, and global marketers tread carefully around cultural and color biases.
How well do you understand color’s influence? Read the following questions, and decide the color you feel best answers the question.
Adapted from Bottom Line/Personal. 1 April

3. Among adults, what color is liked worldwide?
yellow green blue gray

4. BLUE
According to several studies, adults worldwide prefer blue, followed by red, green, purple, yellow and orange. Nearly 50% of those queried in a survey by the American Roper Organization named blue as their favorite color, followed by red.

5. What color is the first to disappear from a child’s crayon box?
green yellow blue red

6. RED
Children universally favor red. A physiologically energizing color, red stimulates and excites.

7. What color goes by 100 different names in the Eskimo language?
gray white black blue

8. WHITE
To help them describe the nuances of ice and snow, Arctic Eskimos have more than 100 words for white.

9. What color puts people in a bad mood if looked at too long?
green red yellow orange

10. YELLOW
Yellow, especially bright lemon-yellow, is the most luminous color in the spectrum and, hence, the most fatiguing color if viewed for long periods of time. (Conversely, it’s the most cheerful if seen at a glance.) Anecdotal studies have shown that couples fight more in lemon-yellow kitchens and babies cry more in lemon-yellow rooms. On the other hand, bright yellow makes school buses very visible.

11. What color has a calming effect on people?
blue green pink white

12. PINK
Interestingly, while red is the most energizing color, pink has a calming, sedating effect. The California children’s probation department found that violent children have fewer outbursts when placed in pink rooms. Many hospitals and correctional institutions have painted rooms pink for the same reason.

13. 12. Which color is very popular for cleaning products?
yellow red white blue

14. BLUE
Blue is popular for cleaning fluids from detergent to beauty cleansers because it suggests hygiene and coolness.

15. What is YOUR favorite color?
Brainstorm a list of all the associations you can make with your favorite color….
Emotions?
Objects?
Cultural Beliefs?
Sports Teams?
Brands?

17. Reading Art and the art of reading
Monet, Claude. Wisteria Oil on canvas. Musée Marmottan, Paris.
Reading Art and the art of reading
Essential Question: How can I analyze a text and offer evidence to support my opinion?
ELACCL9-10RL1: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

18. Basic Questions for ANY piece of art:
Reading Art—AT&T
Basic Questions for ANY piece of art:
Who is the Artist? Do you know anything about the artist?
What is the Title? What can you infer from the title?
When was the painting created? What do you know about the Time period?
Matisse, Henri. The Music Lesson Oil on canvas. Barnes Foundation, Lincoln University, Merion, PA, USA.

19. What details support your conjecture?
Matisse, Henri. The Music Lesson Oil on canvas. Barnes Foundation, Lincoln University, Merion, PA, USA.
Based on what you see in this work, what do you imagine about what was happening immediately before this moment?
What details support your conjecture?
What do these details tell you about the setting of the painting?
How does the artist emphasize these details to show their importance?

20. Henri Matisse. The Music Lesson. 1917. Oil on canvas
Henri Matisse. The Music Lesson Oil on canvas. Barnes Foundation, Lincoln University, Merion, PA, USA.
Imagine you are writing a short story inspired by this painting. Write the opening paragraph that would explain the setting and background information. Using descriptive words, capture the same images the artist captures on canvas. Also, imitate the mood that seems evident in the scene.

21. Henri Matisse. The Music Lesson. 1917. Oil on canvas
Henri Matisse. The Music Lesson Oil on canvas. Barnes Foundation, Lincoln University, Merion, PA, USA.
Exposition
You have just written an exposition—or introduction to the setting, situation, and main characters of the plot of a story.
Share your exposition with a neighbor. What differences occur between your two renditions? What details did you partner include that you did not?

22. Reading Art and the art of reading
Monet, Claude. Wisteria Oil on canvas. Paris, Musée Marmottan
Reading Art and the art of reading
EQ: Where do authors find inspiration for their work?
ELACCL9-10RL9: Analyze how an author draws on and transforms source material in a specific work (e.g., how Shakespeare treats a theme or topic from Ovid or the Bible or how a later author draws on a play by Shakespeare).

23. What details suggest these event(s)?
Check AT&T first!
Characterize the people in the painting. What details support your thoughts?
Explain the plot of the painting. What is happening now? What has happened before? What will happen in the future?
What details suggest these event(s)?
Millais, Sir John Everett. The Woodman’s Daughter.
1851, oil on canvas. The Guildhall Art Gallery, UK.

24. Which character is to blame? How do you know?
The inspiration of the painting is a poem of the same title by Coventry Patmore that tells the story of Maud, a poor woodman's daughter, and a wealthy squire's son. The son eventually seduces the girl. Because their difference in social class prevents them from marrying, Maud, in her despair, drowns their illegitimate child and goes mad.
How does Millais foreshadow these future events in this scene of the budding romance between the two as children?
Which character is to blame? How do you know?
What moral message (theme) is he trying to convey?
Millais, Sir John Everett. The Woodman’s Daughter.
1851, oil on canvas. The Guildhall Art Gallery, UK.

25. Don’t forget AT&T!
Does the artist seem to foreshadow anything negative in this painting? Why or why not?
Hughes, Arthur. The Woodman’s Child. 1860, oil on canvas. Tate
Gallery, London.
This painting also illustrates a child left alone in the woods while a parent works. Compare and contrast the mood of this painting with the Millais painting.

26. Reading Art and the art of reading
Monet, Claude. Wisteria Oil on canvas. Musée Marmottan, Paris.
Reading Art and the art of reading
EQ: How does an artist make his purpose known?
ELACCL9-10RI6: Determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text and analyze how an author uses rhetoric to advance that point of view or purpose.

27. Examine the details in the photograph.
Gardner, Alexander. Home of A Rebel Sharpshooter,
Gettysburg, July Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia.
Check AT&T first!
Examine the details in the photograph.

28. Determine the connotation of each of these words:
Gardner, Alexander. Home of A Rebel Sharpshooter, Gettysburg, July Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia.
Determine the connotation of each of these words:
“home”
“rebel”
“sharpshooter”

29. Consider: Author Subject Audience
Gardner, Alexander. Home of A Rebel Sharpshooter,
Gettysburg, July Chrysler Museum of Art,
Norfolk, Virginia.
Alexander Gardner was Chief Army Photographer under General McClellan of the United States Army during the American civil war.
A century after its publication, photographic analysis suggested that Gardner had manipulated the setting of at least one of his Civil War photos by moving a soldier's corpse and weapon into more dramatic positions. One of his most famous images, "Home of a Rebel Sharpshooter", has been argued to be a fabrication. This argument, first put forth by William Frassanito in 1975, goes this way: Gardner and his assistants dragged the sniper's body 40 yards into the more photogenic surroundings of the Devil's Den to create a better composition. Frassanito acknowledged that the manipulation of photographic settings in the early years of photography was not frowned upon.

30. Gardner, Alexander. Home of A Rebel Sharpshooter, Gettysburg, July Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia.
What is Gardner’s opinion of the war? What details help you make that claim?
What is his purpose in this text? How do you know?

31. Reading Art and the art of reading
Monet, Claude. Wisteria Oil on canvas. Paris, Musée Marmottan
Reading Art and the art of reading
EQ: How do diction and syntax affect the way I understand tone?
ELACCL9-10RL4: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone

32. Don’t forget AT&T!
A writer’s style includes
his word choices (diction)
the arrangement of those choices (syntax)
the presence or absence of simile, metaphor, etc. (figurative language)
Pollack, Jackson. Untitled (Green Silver) Pollock-Krasner Foundation/Artists Rights
Society (ARS), New York.
How would you describe this artist’s style? What aspects of painting are related to diction, syntax, and figurative language? What is the tone of the painting?

33. What is the tone of the painting?
AT&T!
How would you describe this artist’s style (diction, syntax, figurative language)?
What is the tone of the painting?
Monet, Claude. Impression, soleil levant Oil on canvas. Musee Marmottan
How is it similar to or different from the Pollack piece on the previous slide?

34. Reading Art and the art of reading
Monet, Claude. Wisteria Oil on canvas. Paris, Musée Marmottan
Reading Art and the art of reading
EQ: What does a carefully crafted character
add to a text?
ELACCL9-10RL3: Analyze how complex characters (e.g., those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme.

35. Authors develop CHARACTER through both direct and indirect methods.
narration with either implied or explicit judgment
narration with no judgment
physical description
character’s actions
character’s speech
character’s thoughts and feelings
Don’t forget AT&T!
Hopper, Edward. Nighthawks. 1942, oil on canvas. The Art Institute of Chicago.

36. Choose a character from the painting below and write a short scene using at least 4 of the 6 methods of characterization. While you must consider setting, point-of-view, and conflict to create a scene, your main consideration should be on CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT.
Hopper, Edward. Nighthawks. 1942, oil on canvas. The Art Institute of Chicago.

37. Share your scene with a partner
Share your scene with a partner. As you read your partner’s scene, identify the methods of characterization used. Did the writer engage you, help you identify with the character, make you care what happens to the character? How could your partner improve the development of the character?
Hopper, Edward. Nighthawks. 1942, oil on canvas. The Art Institute of Chicago.

38. So you can do this in YOUR classroom!
Teacher Resources
So you can do this in YOUR classroom!

39. MLA Guidelines for Citing Art
Components for citing original artwork:
Name of artist.
Title of artwork, underlined.
Date artwork created.
Museum, gallery, or collection where artwork is housed; indicate name of owner if private collection,
City where museum, gallery, or collection is located.

40. Examples
Ashoona, Kiawak. Smiling Family McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg, ON.
Brancusi, Constantin. The Kiss Tomb of T. Rachevskaia, Montparnasse Cemetery, Paris.
The Great Sphinx. [c BC]. Giza.
Ingres, Jean-Auguste-Dominique. Odalisque Louvre Museum, Paris.
Raphael. The School of Athens Stanza della Segnatura, Vatican Palace, Rome.
Rude, François. La Marseillaise Arc de Triomphe, Paris.

41. Museum Resources for Art Images
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) online collection
National Gallery of Art online collection
Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met) collection database