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…

Identifies two major groups of pseudoinscriptions: distinguished inscriptions which do not convey text but appear to be real things; and proper pseudoinscriptions which may have clearly delineated individual letters that taken together make no sense. Identifies Venice and the Netherlands as centers of Arabic and Hebrew pseudoinscriptions in the…

Attempts a semiotic experiment to explore the fluctuations of meaning produced by interferences between textual and figurative representation within one picture. Discusses examples such as the portrait with its presentation of the subject and the topographical city plan. Provides an in-depth exploration of Philippe de Champaigne's "Ex-voto of…

Argues that William Blake's illustrations for Thomas Gray's "Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat" testify to the contradictions in Gray's poetry. States that Blake's designs offer another language, a contra-diction, that deconstructs Gray's conscious discourse and liberates his unconscious discourse. (RS)

Offers Alain Robbe-Grillet's novel "La Belle Captive" (which employs 77 paintings by the Belgian surrealist Rene Magritte) as playful interchange between word and image. Argues that the novel may be understood to demonstrate a fundamental relationship of inequality between word and image. (RS)

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…

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.

Uncertainty about attributions of works of art and shifts in opinion leading to reattributions are intensifying the study of connoisseurship, the process by which an art historian or curator seeks to determine who made a work of art. (MSE)

Presents two art lessons, the first of which introduces elementary students to Dutch still life painting and to the Dutch painter Claesz. The second lesson introduces intermediate grade students to still life as a subject for painting and to the possibility of personal interpretation by an artist, as shown in an O'Keefe painting. (RM)

Instructional strategies based on a portrait painting of Francisco Goya introduce primary grade students to the idea that portraits are pictures of people. Students also develop an awareness that the visual vocabulary of color, shape, line, texture, and the quality of brushstrokes can communicate feelings and ideas. (RM)

Instructional strategies based on a portrait painting of Jean-Baptiste Oudry familiarize intermediate grade students with the techniques of portraiture and introduce the characteristics of eighteenth-century French rococo painting. (RM)

A commentary on the life and work of Henri Matisse for use with secondary art students is provided. Exercises to use with the commentary are provided, and art activities are suggested. Annotated references are also included. (RM)

The authors examined use of a bipolar scale containing ten descriptors of basic art concepts (e.g. "linear-painterly") identified by Heinrich Wolfflin for analyzing paintings. They found that both trained observers (art history students) and untrained observers (psychology students) could apply Wolfflin's concepts reliably to Renaissance…

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…