While Henri Rousseau's work was not easily classified into any definitive artistic style of the time--impressionism, post-impressionism, fauvism, or cubism--it has been considered a forerunner of surrealism because of its dreamlike sensibility. This teaching guide provides information about Rousseau and his work, focusing on "Tropical Forest…

Examines the distinctions and interrelation of the artist's intentions and the viewers' understanding of a work of art by using the work of Vincent van Gogh and relating it to the artist's correspondence about his own work. (JMF)

Anishinabe (Chippewa) artist George Morrison was trained in European art styles and has been influenced by abstract expressionism, surrealism, primitivism, and indigenous art forms. He discusses the recurring horizon line in his works and the relationships between Native and Western artistic styles. (SV)

This brief article presents describes Pablo Picasso's oil on canvas painting, "Still Life with Glass and Lemon, 1910." Composed of abstract, monochromatic shapes, this painting's original subject is surprisingly a glass and lemon. The artist, Pablo Picasso, developed this unique system of breaking down objects into their basic geometric parts with…

This article describes a lesson in which students compare how artists have depicted rivers in paintings, using different styles, compositions, subject matter, colors, and techniques. They create a watercolor landscape that includes a river. Students can learn about rivers by studying them on site, through environmental study, and through works of…

In the lesson described, the middle school students had been studying the artist Georgia O'Keeffe and the history of her work. Students enhanced their flower portraits by adding a matching border and connecting the lesson to other subject areas. Students dissected a flower and drew a small diagram of the flower and labeled the parts. This is an…

An important revival in art education seeks to provide adolescents with art projects that are culturally and politically relevant to their lives. Stimulated in part by both a postmodernist attitude and the attention to visual culture, such projects address content that is meaningful to students' families, their futures, and their society. These…

Miriam Schapiro's moving artworks take on a life of their own, without the use of traditional chiaroscuro or muscular-skeletal correctness. Taking on the medium of mixed-media collage and raising it from banal reality to high art, Schapiro infuses her work with enough art elements and design principles to stimulate rooms full of art students at a…

This brief article describes the historical, cultural, and artistic elements of Vincent van Gogh's oil on canvas "Undergrowth with Two Figures" of 1980. The article concludes with questions for students to consider in relation to these aspects of the painting.

This brief article describes the life of Maria van Oosterwijck. It also discusses her art and its significance and symbolism. A list of suggested activities for elementary, middle, and high school students is included.

Gabi Swiatkowska is giving a tour of her studio, a dark basement in a narrow wood-frame house in Greenpoint, an old working-class neighborhood in Brooklyn, NY. Her large worktable sits in a corner, facing exposed pipes and gray cinder-block walls. Apart from a painting propped against a wall and a hanging poster, there's little to suggest an…

This paper is part of a research project designed to look at questions of giftedness and exceptional ability in the arts through a case study of three world-class artists. Examination of the childhood art of Picasso, Lautrec, and Klee reveals no common subject preferences nor any real anomalies in graphic development. This paper focuses on the…

Discussed an effective mural program for the Mexican Americans of East Los Angeles. (Author/RK)