Art & Creative writingA Resource Guide For Teachers

Goals of this Resource GuideThis guide provides information and suggested activities designed to help teachers prepare students to visit the Los Angeles County Museum of art, where they will participate in a docent-guided tour entitled Art and Creative Writing. A second goal of the guide is to help teachers relate aspects of the tour

to their school’s curriculum.

About the TourThis docent guided tour lasts for 90 minutes and is offered to students in grades5–12. The tour examines and develops the connection between art and writing. Students will consider artists’

techniques as well as such elements as line, color, shape and texture. Students will respond individually to a variety of writing prompts based on the artworks. Writing pads, pencils and stools areprovided. This tour meets state content standards for language arts for all grades.

About the Museum

LACMA is the largest encyclopedic museum in the western United States with more than 100,000 works of art. Through its far-reaching collections, the museum is both a resource to and a reflection of the many cultural communities and heritages in Southern California. The collection includes artworks from various cultures from the prehistoric to the present.

Suggested classroom activities before the museum visit

Discussion Questions

Choose one of the enclosed art works and describe what you see.–

What are some of the details the artist included? –

How has the artist applied paint? How was color used? –

How does your eye travel through these paintings? –

How has the artist created a sense of movement?–

What story might the artist be trying to tell?

Distribute copies of the glossary and have students identify the elements of art with the enclosed images.

Writing Exercises

1.

Using either Mulholland Drive or the Triumph of Alexander the Great, pick a spot on the road or join the procession. Write a descriptive paragraph about the experience.As you walk or ride along, describe what you see and the sounds you hear. What do you feel? What would the temperature be? What do you smell? Have you ever been in a place that looks like

this?

2.

Make a list of everything you see in the painting, especially the details. Circle your favorites. Create a list poem by re-ordering your words or phrases and writing them in a column.

3.

Write one simile or metaphor for each of the following: line, color, shape and texture. Remember to choose a specific characteristic for the comparison, for example, a specific color.

GlossaryColorThe visual sensation dependent on the reflection or absorption of light from a given surface. Color is made up of hue, intensity, and

value.Hue—refers to the name of the color (red, blue, yellow, orange)Intensity—refers to the brightness or dullness of a colorValue— the lightness or darkness of a hue or neutral color

LineOne of the elements of art. Lines vary in length and direction. Lines can be horizontal, vertical or diagonal. They can describe

structure or gesture, the outline of a shape or create patterns.

ShapeGeometric shapes such as circles, triangles, and rectangles, or freeform shapes, appear in many different kinds of art. They may form the

underlying structure of the composition, or define certain parts. Shapes that are repeated establish patterns.

TextureOne of the elements of art. Texture is the way a surface feels or appears to feel. Texture can range from smooth and soft to rough and hard.

Language Arts

These terms may be used in the description of the reproductions and during the docent tour.

MetaphorAn implied comparison, in which a word or phrase ordinarily used

for one thing is applied to another.

PersonificationRepresentation of a thing or idea as a person.

SimileA direct comparison of dissimilar things, using the words “like”

or “as”.

Glossary

The Triumph of Alexander the Great C. 1485

Bernardo Rosselli

About the Image:

A procession of men and women on foot and on horseback, some wearing armor, others sumptuous clothing, moves from left to right across the long panel. They travel on foot, on horseback, and in carts. The landscape includes rolling hills, just behind the figures, and distant plains, mountains, and buildings. The action is almost entirely contained in the painting’s foreground. This festive procession is believed to commemorate

the triumph of the young Alexander over King Darius during the Battle of Issus in 333 B.C. Alexander is pictured at the center in an elaborate, canopied cart. The four women in the cart at the left may be the mother, wife, and two daughters of the defeated king, who left them to the mercy of Alexander. This

panel originally decorated the front of a cassone, a linen or clothes chest that was a traditional betrothal gift in Renaissance Italy. Alexander’s courteous and respectful treatment of the women was understood as a sign of his high moral principles, making this an appropriate subject for a wedding chest.\

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About the Image:

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The painting shows a young Englishman on his "grand tour" of Italy. Like other English aristocrats of his day, Sir Wyndham Knatchbull-

Wyndham undertook a grand tour or extended journey to Italy to complete his education and admire artworks and antiquities found there. He gestures toward Tivoli in the background, a hill town that in ancient times was a favorite summer retreat for wealthy residents of nearby Rome.

Portrait of sir wyndham

knatchbull-wyndham 1758-59

Pompeo

Batoni

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About the Image:

In this work, Satan sits hunched over, his head on his clawed hands, his giant spiny wings curved around his body. Every detail of the sculpture, from Satan's wings and hands to his anguished, terrible face, expresses something about his character.

Satan is one of the key pieces in the development of 19th century sculpture and an important prototype for Rodin’s brooding representation of The Thinker half a century later.

satan c. 1836

Jean-Jacques Feuchere

MULHOLLAND DRIVE: THE ROAD TO THE STUDIO 1980

David Hockney

About the Image:

British-born artist David Hockney's

great affection for the city of Los Angeles, his home since the

1960s, is evident in the many works that draw upon its cultural iconography: luxurious swimming pools, sun-drenched landscapes, and handsome young men at play. Painted from memory in just a few weeks, Mulholland Drive: The Road to the Studio

, the largest of Hockney's

canvases, vividly captures the quintessential Los Angeles activity: driving. It is a personalized panoramic map of Los Angeles based on the artist's daily trip from his home in the Hollywood Hills to his studio on Santa Monica Boulevard. Hockney establishes a sense of distance by alternating between detailed renderings of objects (trees, houses, tennis courts, and power lines) that represent sections of the landscape and more abstract planes of color or simple grids that define the outlying Studio City and Burbank. Mulholland Drive swirls across the top of the work, moving the viewer's eye from left to right and conveying the sense of motion and altitude that the artist experienced on the ridge road.

Follow-up writing exercisesAfter the museum visit

Have students choose one of their favorite pieces from the tour and write one phrase or sentence for each of the following elements: line, shape, and color. Use descriptive language, including action verbs and similes. Arrange the phrases or sentences in any order, adding or changing words to create a poem.

Additional Images and information about objects on your tour can be found by Visiting Collections Online at

www.lacma.org

Buddha Shakyamuni

India

Ceremonial Ball GameMexico, Nayarit

Portrait of Cardinal Roberto Ubaldino, Papal Legate to BolognaGuido Reni

La Place du Théâtre

FrançaisCamille Pissarro

Apocalyptic LandscapeLudwig Meidner

View of VetheuilClaude Monet

LACMA General InformationPlease review these regulations with students before arriving at

the museum.

Museum Rules•

No touching works of art including outdoor sculpture. Viewers must not come closer than 24 inches to any work of art.

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No touching walls or any parts of installations. No sitting on platforms in the galleries or gardens.•

No eating, drinking, smoking, gum-chewing, excess noise, or running in the galleries.•

All groups must comply with instructions or requests from docents, gallery attendants or security staff.•

Teachers and chaperones must stay with the students at all times

and are responsible for student behavior.•

Student assignments that require note taking are not permitted during a docent tour.

Arriving at the Museum•

Plan to arrive at the museum at least 15 minutes before the tour

is scheduled to begin.•

The museum is located at 5905 Wilshire Boulevard where buses should arrive for students to disembark. •

Enter the museum at the BP Grand Entrance on Wilshire Boulevard in front of Urban Light. A docent will meet your bus when it arrives.

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Buses should park on 6th Street, which is one block north of Wilshire Boulevard.•

Cars may park on surrounding streets or in the pay parking lot at 6th Street.

Lunch•

Picnicking is permitted at the tables outside the Ahmanson Building, on the BP Grand Entrance or in the park, and students are welcome to bring sack lunches. Seating is not permitted in the Café

or the surrounding patio. Box lunches may be purchased from the Café. Orders must be placed one week before your arrival. Please contact the Plaza Café

(323) 857-6197.

Museum Reentry•

If you are planning to visit the galleries after your guided tour please present a copy of your confirmation letter at the Welcome Center on the BP Grand Entrance, or the Los Angeles Times Central Court, to receive free admission tickets. Your group may not enter the galleries until 12 noon when the museum opens to the public.

Enjoy your visit