Describes the functions, styles, and methods of creating medieval tapestries. Illustrates a narrative tapestry titled "The Prophecy of Nathan," attributed to Master Philip. Describes how textile artists' personal styles can be recognized. Suggests art activities for elementary and secondary students. (KM)

The traveling exhibition titled "The Wild Beasts: Fauvism and its Affinities" opened first at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and was then moved to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 1976. Discusses the exhibition's historic value, how Fauvism passed through three fairly distinct stylistic phases, and the social…

Discusses art history from the standpoint of the circumstances surrounding the artists themselves. (GB)

Describes how the author, motivated by Esther Krichevsky's fishprints, introduced fishprinting to a middle school. Students explored the origin of fishprinting and other Japanese arts as well as learned about printmaking, collage, and painting. Maintains that, for children to grow creatively, they need freedom to experiment. (KM)

Describes how artists' styles, images, and methods can express their cultural heritage, cultural influences, life experiences, and memories. Uses Romare Bearden's (1914-1988) collages and photomontages as examples. Suggests some collage activities for elementary and high school students based on their own life experiences. (KM)

Describes origins of the constructed relief and shows some examples of contemporary artists' work. Suggests using this history to motivate students to construct their own reliefs. Outlines a four-step lesson: preliminary drawing, finished drawing, mock-up relief, and finished construction using durable materials, such as wood, acrylic sheet, or…

Describes how children six years and older can create plaster friezes. Children were first shown examples and then drew plans before creating their own friezes. (KM)

Describes how artist Betye Saar collects technological debris that she manipulates to create her artwork. Compares her work with African art which has a long history of transforming materials from the environment into symbols and objects. Suggests activities for students to create art with debris from their environment. (KM)

Outlines the life of Henri Matisse and how he created his paper cut-outs, which were reproduced in a book. Discusses the importance of artists' books. Suggests some creative activities for all grades in book making and paper cut-outs that could be worked in conjunction with a language arts program. (KM)

Presents background material and elementary and secondary activity ideas about minimalist artist and architect Frank Gehry. Focuses on the shapes and materials used in his "Winton Residence Guest House." Elementary activities encourage students to examine line, shape, texture, and scale and dimension. Secondary activities look at…

Describes how junior high school students in Arizona combine what they have learned in ceramic history class with ceramic production skills to create their own personal ceramic heads in their images. (KM)

Describes a relief printmaking unit for sixth graders with the objective of decorating the inside of a pyramid. Ancient Egyptian imagery was used to help students become familiar with the style. Students designed and printed linoleum prints in different colors. They then critiqued their work and made their selection for the pyramid. (KM)

Describes the origins of the Peruvian Nazca Indians double-spouted jugs. Provides a lesson plan so students can create their own double-spouted jugs. (KM)

Shows how high school students used foam carpet padding to create forms for still-life drawing. Discusses learning to progress from simple-line drawing to a three-dimensional image. Identifies the drawing of shadows, and extreme light and dark values, as points that need to be emphasized repeatedly. (KM)

Describes a game designed to motivate students to conduct art historical research. Required students to find artists who created art in four different ways, realistically, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. Students chose ways to take collected data and work cooperatively to create a mural. (KM)