art materpiece: marc and rembrandt

Every other Wednesday I head into 2 kindergarten classes to volunteer my time and give a short art history lesson with assigned prints. I totally spaced on posting what what we did in March. Oops! Maybe I'll post that later on but, for now here are the prints I presented in April:

The Lamb by Franz Marc

1. About the Artist
   Franz Marc was a German artist interested in using color in new and exciting ways. His paintings are somewhat realistic except for their bold and powerful use of color. He is known as an expressionist painter with bright colored animals such as the painting we will see today.
   
   
2. What do you see in the painting? Lamb and natural surroundings
   
   
3. Why did he paint animals in this non-real looking way? For this artist drawing is more to do with seeing than drawing and sometimes the seeing is from our hearts rather than with our eyes. He painted with feelings.
   
   
4. Which colors to you see? Bright, He uses color to express feelings; he believed that animals held great spirit, grace, and power. Marc gave an emotional meaning to the colors he used in his work, blue would be used for boys and spirituality, yellow represented girls and joy and red danger.
   

The kids really enjoyed telling me about the many things they saw in this painting. The colors were bright and exciting and the kids thought that color representations were pretty cool. Many had a hard time seeing the lamb at first, probably due to them not knowing what a lamb is too well. I showed a few other prints by this artist and they were able to see the animals in the other prints much more easily.

The Apostle Simon by Rembrandt

1. About the Artist
   There are only a few people in history so famous that they're known only by their first names...Rembrandt is one of them! (full name Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn) Rembrandt is considered one of the greatest painters in art history. He had 8 brothers and sisters! He created many portrait figures like the painting we will see today.
   
   
2. What would you name this painting?
   Man. This was painted in 1661 (that’s 349 years ago). The name of this painting is The Apostle Simon.
   
   
3. What do you see in the painting?
   He is resting his hand on a cross saw. He has large strong hands that tell us he was a hard worker.
   
   
4. Who is he?
   Simon was one of the twelve apostles of Jesus. He was known as healer and helped those who were hurt and sick.
   
   
5. What kind of mood is he in? How can you tell? By looking at his facial features, let’s demonstrate different expressions. How do our faces change when we are happy, sad, surprised or angry? How do you feel about drawing faces? Is drawing a face easier or harder than painting a other things for you?
   
   
6. What do you think is taking place in this painting? It appears as a fun family outing showing people, nature and machines (the bicycles) in harmony. Some may have gone swimming and they were taking a break from bike riding.
   
   
7. Color? The colors in this picture are called monochromatic. That means the colors are all in the same tones.
   
   
8. Why do you think the artist painted it? This type of painting is called a portrait. Long ago when Simon the Apostle lived they didn’t have cameras. The only way to have a photo of someone of something was if it was painted by an artist.
   

This one was interesting. I was worried about it but, the kids had lots to say. Some asked if he was Jesus. We discussed his overall appearance in depth. Many thought he was inside a cave due to the background. One kid thought he was sad because he couldn't get in the shower because his wife was in there and using all the hot water. Kids say some funny things ;)