LINE HISTORY AND MYP CONNECTION

MYP GLOBAL CONTEXT  Personal and Cultural Expression  What is the nature and purpose of creative expression?

Key Objective  Cultural  You will gain an understanding of the beginnings of line contour drawings from examining the ancient cave art of the Paleolithic people in France and Spain.  You will create a variety of images focused on contour and structural line elements.

You will be graded upon Criterion A: Knowledge and Understanding  Do you have a thorough understanding of the topic being studied. (Vocabulary and short answers) Criterion B: Application –  Proficiency of your finished piece. Criterion C: Reflection and evaluation  response to what you learned and the quality of your product. Criterion D: Artistic Awareness and Personal Engagement  Did you actively participate, show initiative, enthusiasm, and commitment?

Inquiry Questions  How was line used in the ancient caves of France and Spain?  How can I create something of impact?  What is the function and meaning of expression?

Vocabulary to define and understand  Paleolithic  Elements of art  Line  Contour lines  Structural lines

Elements of Art  Line – A mark with greater length than width. Lines can be horizontal, vertical, or diagonal, straight or curved, thick or thin.  Shape – is a closed line. Shapes can be geometric or organic.  Form – three-dimensional shape.  Space – the area between and around objects. Space can also refer to the feeling of depth – the illusion of space.  Texture – the surface quality that can be seen and felt.  Color – light reflected off of objects. Hue, value, and intensity.

Line  In drawing, line, refers to a type of mark that contains both a direction and a length.  Line is an art element.  There are numerous varieties of possible lines, including curved, bent, thick, wide, broken, vertical, horizontal, blurred, or freehand.

Lines  There are:  Contour lines – lines on the outside  Structural lines – lines on the inside  The Swiss artist, Paul Klee, defined line as “a dot out for a walk.”

Lascaux, France  A cave contains painted animals – cattle, horses, bison, and deer.  They seem to roam across the walls and ceilings.  These images, created in the period known as prehistory, before the development of writing, present many mysteries; specialists are still speculating on their function and meaning.

Spain and France

Lascaux, France (20,000 years ago)

Spanish cave paintings

Cave of Altamira near Santander, Spain

Red sphere and handprints  Oldest in the world.  Researchers found that one is at least 40,800 years old.  That makes them older than the more famous French caves by thousands of years.

Paleolithic Era  The origins of image-making date at least as early as the Paleolithic (35,000 – 8,000 B.C.), a period which is characterized by the use of refined stone tools.  At this time, during the last Ice Age, people probably lived in tents during the warmer months.  As cold weather approached, they sought protection in rock shelters or in mouths of caves.  They were migratory people that were hunter-gatherers.

Hunter Gathers  They would follow the migrations of animals herds.  They men would hunt and the women would gather the mainstay of their diet – plants, fruits, nuts, and shellfish.

Drawing on wall  Sometimes the Paleolithic artists drew directly onto the wall with chunks of red, yellow, brown, or black minerals or earth.  But more often they created liquid pigments by grinding minerals and mixing them with animal fat, vegetable oil, or bone marrow.  They could apply these paints to the wall using a brush made of animal hair or a frayed stick.  Dots of colors were pressed into the wall by fingers dipped into paint.

Contour lines  Contour lines are the outside lines that define the edges of an object.  See how the dark lines help us see the contour lines of the object.  Artist – Jean Dubeffet

Contour lines  The artist – Fernand Leger – has defined the contour lines by adding dark lines around the shapes.

Contour lines in sculpture  You can see that the artist Alberto Giacometti has used contour lines in this sculpture to define his art piece.

Contour lines  Artist Keith Haring has employed contour lines to add emotion to his painting.

Structural lines  Structural lines are the lines inside the contour lines.  You can see the artist has contour lines defining large shapes filled with structural lines inside.

Structural lines  This is another example of structural lines filling the contour lines.

Structural lines define  You can see how the structural lines in this drawing define the object, so we can tell it is a hand.  This is where we are going to start in our exploration of line.