STANDARDS

Lexile: 1100L

Core Art Standards:

VA1: Generate artistic ideas and work.

VA7: Perceive and analyze artistic work.

VA11: Relate artistic ideas and works with societal, cultural, and historical context to deepen understanding.

CCSS Anchor Standards:

R2: Determine central themes.

R7: Integrate and evaluate content in diverse media.

W3: Write narratives or imagined experiences.

Essential Question: How does learning about art impact how we perceive the world?

Enduring Understanding: Awareness developed through engagement with art can lead to understanding and appreciation of self, others, the natural world, and constructed environments.

Vocabulary: abstract, color theory, foreground, juxtaposes, landscapes, middle ground, mood, palette, patterns, representational, vistas

Materials: computer or interactive whiteboard, “Graphic Organizer: Art and Nature” skills sheet

Lesson: Artistic Frontiers

Use with pages 4-5.

Objective: Students will develop an understanding of the relationship between art and nature.

PREPARATION:

Print copies of the “Graphic Organizer: Art and Nature” skills sheet. Preload the video “Ansel Adams and the National Parks” on your computer or interactive whiteboard

PROCEDURE:

As a class, read “Artistic Frontiers.” Invite students to study all the artworks closely. Ask: How do these artists explore nature in their art? What messages do they convey? (Thomas Cole creates a landscape, inviting viewers to consider nature’s power and humans’ place within nature; Ansel Adams creates photographs to help viewers connect to nature; Alma Thomas employs an abstract style, using color to capture the feeling of being in nature.)
View the video “Ansel Adams and the National Parks.” Ask: What role did Adams play in the development of the national parks? (Answers will vary but should refer to facts presented in the video.)
Have students record their findings in their “Graphic Organizer: Art and Nature” skills sheets.

DISCUSSION:

What similarities do you see between Cole’s painting and Adams’s photograph? (Answers will vary but may mention that both are landscapes and include depictions of the wilderness.)
Compare Cole’s painting with Thomas’s. (Answers will vary but might draw a comparison between the atmospheric drama Cole paints and Thomas’s use of color to capture mood.)

REMOTE LEARNING:

Research the Hudson River School painters. Select one of the artists in this group and dig deeper. Write a paragraph about the artist’s work.
Do an online image search for Thomas’s paintings. Use her artwork as inspiration to create a colorful, abstract image inspired by nature.