Various scientific studies, interpretations, analyses, and comparisons have revealed a strong link in the origin of Kazakh mythology in contemporary Kazakh society. The main problem in this lies in the fact that existing research on mythology has always centered in fields of literature, philosophy, religion and culture, and history. Previous…

As art historians have noted, "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" (1907) occupies a very special place in the history of Western painting, both as the harbinger of 20th century modernism and as the progenitor of Cubism. For these reasons, as also for its convoluted history and multivariate interpretations, there is a vast art-historical…

The Dadaists were an unconventional group of artists who used their art to rebel against civilization in the early twentieth century. They experimented with a variety of media and often used machines as themes in their artwork. Dadaist artist Kurt Schwitters incorporated city refuse into his collages, including bus tickets, newspapers, cartons,…

A humid summer haze covers the River Seine and the grassy bank where young men and boys go swimming on Sunday. Everything seems so quiet, still, and very hot. They wear hats to protect them from the hot sun. The artist Georges Seurat used warm tones to give viewers the feeling of the hot sun. Seurat was trying to catch the dazzle of hot sunlight…

Artists often paint the different seasonal activities people engage in and the way the world looks as changes take place. The weather for each of the four seasons is different. Farmers plant crops and gardens in the spring and harvest their crops in the fall, just like "The Harvesters" by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. To begin, children will observe…

This article describes a miniature painting project that allows students to research a master painter and then replicate the work on a smaller scale. This lesson focuses on the students' ability to learn to identify style, subject matter, themes, and content in painting through the study of historical paintings, and the application of various…

One of the fifth-grade art-curriculum objectives is to create a relief print. In this era of budget cuts, the author was looking for a way for her students to meet this objective by making colorful prints without using a lot of expensive printing ink. She knew she wanted to use a rainforest animal theme, as well as share the colorful art of Henri…

This article features the painting "View of Toledo," based on Toledo, a very old city located on a high plateau in Spain. By the time the artist El Greco painted the picture, he had lived there for 31 years. When one looks at the picture, one will see a storm approaching and will see the city as if it were lit by a flash of lightning. What main…

Medical doctor and geologist Dr. Ferdinand Vandiveer Hayden selected more than 30 scientists, technical personnel, and artists, including photographer William Henry Jackson and painter Thomas Moran, to join the survey of the Yellowstone region in northwest Wyoming territory. Thomas Moran was an accomplished artist when he joined the survey to…

In this article, second-graders create a sunflower drawing using pastel techniques that produce similar effects to Vincent van Gogh's brushstrokes. They also learn how layering colors and using white to lighten colors creates depth in their flowers.

A great start for the semester, this pinwheel project provides a good dose of art history, and a variety of media and techniques. It also teaches students how to clean up and store things properly. Five artists are introduced, each with a different art medium and technique. In this activity, students are expected to: (1) study works by five famous…

When he painted a portrait of Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II (1552-1612), Giuseppe Arcimboldo used his imagination, and portrayed him as "Vertumnus," the Roman god of vegetation and the seasons. It's fun to find the different fruits, vegetables and flowers he used: pea-pod eyelids, a gourd for the forehead. Court painters of the time usually…

This article describes how the author exposes her students to the world of Jackson Pollock, the artist who brings to mind dripping, meandering, splashing puddles of paint. Pollock's action paintings of the late 1940s-'50s call out for unfettered movement, fluidity, and freedom of application. Is it even possible to capture the action, rhythm and…

This article describes an activity in which students created and designed lampshades using artists' styles. This was a unique experience because while all of the students have drawn or painted on flat canvas, none of them had done dimensional painting in this manner before. Essentially, they were planning and creating murals in 3-D. The author…

Bright, shining gold, so daring and intense. Patterns reflecting the spirit of the portrait's subject, wisps of a look that intrigue the viewer. Something sultry in the eye, something shimmering on the lip... these are the works of Gustav Klimt. Klimt was Vienna's golden boy of painting. Through his use of pattern and the mosaic qualities in his…