gertrude vanderbilt whitney lesson plan grades: 6 … vanderbilt whitney lesson plan grades: ......

Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Lesson Plan Grades: 6-12 Norton Museum of Art BIG IDEA: Conveying Expression and Meaning in Three-Dimensional Forms with Inspiration from the Artwork of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. ART STANDARD(S): (C-Palms) VA.68.O.3.2 Discuss the communicative differences between specific two- and three-dimensional works of art. VA.68.S.3.5 Apply two-dimensional techniques and media to create or enhance three-dimensional artwork. VA.912.C.3.1 Use descriptive terms and varied approaches in art analysis to explain the meaning or purpose of an artwork. VA.912.H.1.1 Analyze the impact of social, ecological, economic, religious, and/or political issues on the function or meaning of the artwork. VA.912.H.2.3 Analyze historical or cultural references in commemorative works of art to identify the significance of the event or person portrayed.

FLORIDA STANDARD(S) & NGSSS: (C-Palms) SS.8.A.1.7 View historic events through the eyes of those who were there as shown in their art, writings, music, and artifacts. SS.6.W.1.6 Describe how history transmits culture and heritage and provides models of human character. LAFS.68.RH.1.2 Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of the source distinct from prior knowledge or opinions. LAFS.68.WHST.2.4 and LAFS.910.WHST.2.4 Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

ART CONTENT LEARNING GOAL:

• Students will interpret meaning and expression in art and learn to convey both through three-dimensional sculpture.

CORE CONTENT LEARNING GOAL:

• Students will learn to interpret artworks as cultural records and primary sources.

• Students will record their ideas and artistic process through descriptive writing.

I CAN:

• Interpret artistic intentions when viewing art • Describe the significance of an artwork • Recognize art as a cultural and historical record

• Identify exemplary qualities in existing artwork • Describe the differences between two-dimensional and three-dimensional artworks • Convey meaning through a three-dimensional composition • Produce clear and coherent descriptive writing.

VOCABULARY:

• Sculpture: The art of making three-dimensional representational or abstract forms, especially by carving stone or wood, casting metal or plaster, or assembling different materials.

• In-the-round: A three-dimensional sculpture intended to be viewed from all angles. • Composition: The arrangement of lines, colors, shapes, textures and space in a work of art. • Relief: A type of sculpture in which subjects stand out from the surrounding two-dimensional

background; unlike sculpture in the round, the composition in relief sculpture can be viewed only from one side.

• Medium: The material used by an artist to create a work of art. • Bronze: A metallic alloy often used in sculpture, it is an alloy composed of copper and another

metal, often tin. A bronze sculpture is often referred to as a "bronze." It can be used for statues, singly or in groups, reliefs, and small statuettes and figurines, as well as bronze elements to be fitted to other objects such as furniture.

• Cast: An object made by pouring molten metal or other material into a mold. • Model: Used as a verb, the additive process of forming clay, plaster or other sculptural

medium into a three-dimensional form. • Maquette: A sculptor's small, preliminary, three-dimensional model. • Active Space: The area controlled by a physical object, including the physical volume or mass

and the surrounding or enclosed space. • Positive Space: The area of occupied space within a composition. • Negative Space: The background, unoccupied, or space within a composition.

TECHNOLOGY & MATERIALS:

• Sketching Paper and Pencils • Armature Wire • Wire Cutters • Aluminum Foil • Self-Hardening Modeling clay • Plastic Bags • Analysis Worksheet (see appendix)

Resources:

• “Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Papers, 1851-1975, Bulk 1888-1942.” Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 2017, www.aaa.si.edu/

• Roberts, Ellen E. Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney: Sculpture, West Palm Beach, Florida: The Norton Museum of Art, 2018

• “Sculpture.” Scholastic Art, Retrieved from: www.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3754173

• Shaw, Michael. “How Did Soldiers Cope with War?” 2014, Jan. 29, Retrieved from: https://www.bl.uk/world-war-one/articles/how-did-soldiers-cope-with-war

LESSON : Part I: Reading and Discussion

1. Who was Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney? Students will read about the life of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. Provide students with copies of Artistic Beginnings, an excerpt from Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney: Sculpture by Dr. Ellen E. Roberts, Ph.D (see appendix). Allow students time to complete the reading.

2. Display Honorably Discharged, (Figure 1) circa 1916-1919 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney on

the projector. Distribute analysis worksheets (see appendix) to students and allow them a few minutes to record their observations.

Figure 1. Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney

Honorably Discharged, 1916–1919 Bronze

54.6 × 19.1 × 15.2 cm (21 ½ × 7 ½ × 6 in) Private collection

3. Introduce students to vocabulary terms: Sculpture, in-the-round, cast, and medium. Encourage students to describe the composition using the elements of art and principles of design (see appendix). Encourage students to share their observations, and lead a discussion about the artwork using the following prompts:

• What is the subject of the sculpture? Describe the figure’s clothing and props. Do

these provide any clues as to who this person could be? Examine the figure’s facial expression. What do you imagine the figure is thinking? What does the expression convey about the figure’s character? How does the expression contribute to the mood of the sculpture? What is the subject of this sculpture?

• Honorably Discharged, “…depicts war’s aftermath, when a wounded man gets to return to his loved ones, yet still bears the scars of battle.”1 Whitney depicts the soldier with somber resolution. The figure appears calm; his expression and injury allude to the grueling nature of a soldier’s life during World War I. Having experienced the war during her time at the hospitals in Neuilly-sur-Seine and Juilly in France, Whitney portrayed the mood of war in sculptures like Honorably Discharged: “In her six weeks in France…Whitney volunteered at the hospital in Neuilly-sur-Seine. There she encountered the wartime traumas she had heard about. Having just seen a man dying of gangrene, she wrote, “[As] I looked at the faces of the wounded… [I] read in each the question ‘Will I be next?’”2

4. Take a few moments to discuss Whitney’s artwork as a primary source. Like her journal

entries and writings, Whitney’s artworks are an expression of her experiences, ideas, and opinions. They offer insight into the struggles and passions, not only of the artist, but of society and of the time as well. Memorials are created to remind viewers of events and occurrences that had an impact on society. Allow students to share their observations about the significance of wartime memorial sculpture. What do you think Whitney hoped to convey through her sculpture?

5. Continue the discussion of wartime memorial sculpture by displaying Whitney’s Sketch for

Battle Scene No. 1 and Sketch for Battle Scene No. 2 (Figures 2 and 3) circa 1919.

Figure 2 Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney

Sketch for Battle Scene No. 1, made for the Madison Square Victory Arch, New York, N.Y., 1919

Graphite on paper 71.1 x 170.2 cm (28 x 67 in)

The Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Studio, Old Westbury, New York

1 Roberts, Ellen. Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney: Sculpture, West Palm Beach, Florida: The Norton Museum of Art, 2018: 59. 2 Ibid, 43-44.


Sketch for Battle Scene No. 2, made for the Madison Square Victory Arch, New York, N.Y., 1919

Graphite on paper 71.1 x 170.2 cm (28 x 67 in)


6. Ask the students to list various ways of generating and conveying visual ideas. Inform

students that like many artworks, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney’s sculptures were carefully planned and revised before being modeled, sculpted or cast. Whitney made sketches of her work in order to plan her compositions and accurately convey the desired result. Compare the artistic process of sketching to writing an outline or draft. Whitney’s two-dimensional sketches served as plans from which the three-dimensional works were created.

• Because sculptures are three-dimensional forms, in planning the compositions, artists

must consider both appearance and structure. Whitney’s Sketch for Battle Scene No. 1 and Sketch for Battle Scene No. 2 demonstrate sketches as sculptural plans.

7. Display Battle Scene No. 1 and Battle Scene No. 2 (Figures 4 and 5) circa 1919 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. Introduce the vocabulary word relief, and encourage students to use appropriate vocabulary in their discussion.


Battle Scene No. 1, made for the Madison Square Victory Arch, New York, N.Y., 1919

Bronze 63.5 × 165.1 × 15.2 cm (25 × 65 × 6 in)



Battle Scene No. 2, made for the Madison Square Victory Arch, New York, N.Y., 1919

Bronze 63.5 × 165.1 × 15.2 cm (25 × 65 × 6 in)


• Discuss the reliefs as sculptural scenes. Ask students to compare the relief panels with

the figure depicted in Honorably Discharged. Why would the artist choose to create Battle Scene No. 1 and Battle Scene No. 2 as reliefs rather than sculpture in-the-round?

• Battle Scene No. 1 and Battle Scene No. 2 were commissioned as panels for the temporary Victory Arch (Figure 6) circa 1919 erected in Madison Square, New York, N.Y. These panels were 16-feet by 7-feet in scale, but only these smaller versions exist.

Figure 6. Thomas Hastings

Victory Arch, New York, N.Y., 1919 Wood and Plaster.

Courtesy of the Library of Congress

• The repertoire of works created by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney is varied. In addition to war memorials, Whitney also created several notable monuments including the Titanic Memorial (Figure 7) circa 1912-1915 in Washington D.C. Her works also include subjects such as fountains and portraits.


Titanic Memorial, modeled 1912-15, carved circa 1916. Granite

384.1 x 396.2cm (151 x 156 in) Washington, D.C.

8. Display Barbara, created by Whitney in 1913 (Figure 8). This sculpture depicts her youngest

daughter, Barbara, at the age of 10.


Barbara, 1913 Bronze

50.8 × 11.4 × 12.7 cm (20 × 4 ½ × 5 in) The Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Studio,

Old Westbury, New York

9. Encourage students to compare and contrast Barbara with Honorably Discharged. Ask

students to describe the compositional differences of the two sculptures. What are the differences between the two subjects? How does the artist convey these differences to the viewer?

• Enhancement option: Have students write comparison and contrast essays about Barbara and Honorably Discharged. Encourage students to use descriptive details and support their conclusions with specific references to the works.

Part II: Activity Activity part I:

• Display photo of Whitney’s Plaster model, Barbara, circa 1913 (Figure 9). Inform students that they will be creating a three-dimensional sculpture maquette. Like Whitney’s models, this maquette must portray both expression and meaning. The sculptures should convey a story, either fictional or factual, that students will record through descriptive writing.


Barbara, 1913 Plaster

41.9 × 10.2 × 8.9 cm (16 ½ × 4 × 3 ½ in) Private collection

• Provide students with sketch paper and pencils. Have students create three to five

figure sketches. Inform students that the sketches will serve as their sculpture plans. Sculptures must be created in-the-round; visually interesting from all angles. Remind students that their sculptures must be freestanding, and to consider weight distribution and support in the design.

• Once students have completed their sketches, encourage them to share their designs with the class. Each student should select one sketch to serve as the design for their maquette.

Activity part II:

• Inform students that the first step in creating a maquette is to create the sculpture framing. Students will use armature wire to create the framing for their sculptures. Students will mold the wire into the desired form (see Figure 10). The position of the armature legs, arms and head should convey the expression and meaning of the sculpture. Remind students that figures must be self-supporting.

Figure 10. Armature Figure. https://i1.wp.com/www.upuno.com/upuno-web2/wp- content/uploads/2015/09/2015-09-30-Types-of-stop- motion-armatures-13.jpg?ssl=1

• Once the wire frame has been created, instruct the students to fill out the figures’ bodies by wrapping them in aluminum foil (Figure 11). Molding the aluminum foil helps to define the anatomy adding definition to the wire structure.

Figure 11. Foil Wrapped Armature. http://artsemash.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/foil-sculptures.jpg

Activity Part III:

• Explain that modeling is an additive process. Clay is added and modeled into the desired form. Distribute clay and plastic bags. Before students begin, inform them that the clay is self-hardening and will dry out when exposed to air. Clay and working maquettes must be stored in tightly sealed plastic bags to avoid premature hardening. Instruct students to apply the clay to the armature. It may be helpful to describe the armature as the figure’s skeleton, and the aluminum foil as the muscles, and the clay as the skin. Students should model the clay paying careful attention to proportions and definition.

Activity part IV:

• Once students have completed their maquettes, allow students time to write descriptions of their work. Descriptions should include:

o Title of the work o Description of the subject o Motivation of the work o Process and techniques employed to create the work o Description of the character and expression depicted in the artwork

ASSESSMENT: Students’ understanding of concepts and meeting standards will be evaluated through authentic assessments. Students will complete a real-world task (sketching, modeling and descriptive writing) to demonstrate mastery of content and techniques.

ESOL STRATEGIES:

• Activate prior knowledge by relating content to previously covered material. • Encourage hands-on learning through sketching, modeling and writing. • Use discussion and probing questions to enhance understanding and learning.

APPENDIX:

15Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney: Sculpture

Artistic Beginnings

Gertrude Vanderbilt was born in New York in 1875 into one of the wealthiest families of her age. Her great-grandfather, Cornelius Vanderbilt, called the “Commodore,” had made a fortune in shipping and railroads, and his son and grandson had only increased it. By the time Gertrude was growing up, the Vanderbilts could afford a luxurious lifestyle and offer her all the advantages money could buy. Nevertheless, from any early age Vanderbilt was dissatisfied with her life. She was frustrated by the opportunities denied her because she was female, lamenting in her journal in 1890, “What fun boys do have, when I think of it. They can do just about what they like, and girls, especially myself, cannot do one thing.”6 She despised the notoriety brought on by her social position, feeling that she could never trust that people she met were genuinely interested in her for her own sake. Looking back on her life at the age of eighteen, she wrote, “I longed to be someone else, to be liked only for myself, to live quietly and happily without the burden that goes with riches.”7

Vanderbilt’s parents had a puritanical bent and encouraged their children to repress their feelings. Shy by nature, their daughter learned to hide her emotions even from those closest to her. As she described it in 1893, “I was always reserved, too much so, they said, and I froze people up if I did not want to be intimate with them until they actually became afraid of me. I had a way of hiding my feelings so completely that even my best friends, those who knew me best, could not tell what was passing within me.”8 Yet she longed for an emotional outlet, seeking relief in the journal in which she wrote prolifically, in draft-ing heartfelt letters that she did not send, and in penning fiction that was often inspired by her own experience. Vanderbilt did find an early interest in art. She grew up surrounded by the major collections amassed by her family, such as the works seen in her grandfather’s picture gallery (fig. 1) and her father’s house, which included an elaborate mantelpiece by con-temporary American sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens (fig. 2).9 In addition, from the age of fifteen on, she traveled to Europe on a nearly annual basis and there visited count-less museums and exhibitions. At this stage, she preferred idealized art. While she was impressed by the Venus de Milo’s “beautiful, sweet, serious face” on her first visit to the Louvre in 1890, for example, on seeing a Rubens painting in Dresden the next year she wrote, “Most of Rubens is to me too clumsy, his style is not ideal enough.”10

As she grew up, Vanderbilt increasingly realized that the comfortable but prescribed life of an upper-class woman was not going to satisfy her. She wrote in her journal at the age of nineteen, “If I could have some interest, some purpose that would furnish me with thought matter, but not take more time than I would have to spare, it would be so nice.”11 She began a novel, A Foreign Experience, at about this time, seeking a meaning for her life beyond the traditional boundaries of her class and gender.

16 Ellen E. Roberts

In 1896, at the age of twenty-one, Vanderbilt married Harry Payne Whitney. He was an eminently suitable match for the Vanderbilt heiress: he was also from one of New York’s leading families and was heir to only slightly less money than she was. Yet their marriage did not bring her the happiness she had hoped it would. Almost immediately, Vanderbilt, now Whitney, was bored by her duties as a society hostess. She also quickly became pregnant and found herself dreading the birth of her child, because she knew

it would force her to curtail her travel and the other activities that she loved. She wrote to a friend, “I am going to have a baby in August and am not a bit rejoiced as I should be. I don’t want to be tied down.”12 Her daughter Flora was born in 1897, and she had a second child, Cornelius, in 1899. Although she loved them, her fears were realized, as she had to restrict her lifestyle because of her maternal duties. Whitney received considerable assistance from nurses, nannies, and housemaids in the raising of her children, but she nevertheless, like nearly all women of her time, took more responsibility for them than her husband did, and this impacted the time she had for herself. In this period, Harry drifted away from the law career he had intended and began spending more time occupied with his father in their shared interests in business, polo, and horseracing. He spent increasingly less time with his family. Whitney felt the physical dis-tance, but also an increasing emotional one, as her husband withdrew into the pursuits of their social class and she realized that she needed fulfillment outside of it. She would later write of Harry, “His brain is marvelously quick and with discipline could yet do wonders. He has known no discipline. Life has given him all he has asked of it from the beginning. Indulgent parents provided for every wish before it was

uttered.”13 Despite their similarities of wealth and upbringing, Whitney and her husband had fundamentally different outlooks on life. He was content to live the life of leisure that his inheritance allowed, while she was not. Although it would have conventionally been Harry, as a man, who would have applied himself to a profession, it was Whitney who sought a serious occupation. In a 1912 journal she entitled “Beginning of Autobiography,” Whitney recalled the dissatisfaction she felt in her first few years of marriage: “I wanted to work. I was not very happy or satisfied in my life . . . . I found myself . . . looking into a future that held neither pleasure nor satisfaction. I had always drawn and painted a little, now I wanted to try modeling.”14 At about this same time, she bought her first works of art, three watercolors by American artist John La Farge. She later recalled, “From then on I took an interest in American art. I began to realize the opportunity I had of acquiring.”15 In the art world, where she functioned as both an artist and a patron, Whitney found the intellectual and emotional community she missed in the class into which she had been born.

Fig. 3 Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (American, 1875–1942). Drawing from Sketchbook [Rough Sketches—The Story of a Modern Girl], 1890s. Ink on paper; 26.7 × 21. 6 cm (10 1⁄2 × 8 1⁄2 in.). Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney papers, 1851–1975, bulk, 1888–1942. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Elements of Art • LINE is a path of a moving point. Lines can be vertical, horizontal, diagonal, thick, thin, curved,

straight, parallel, bent, etc. • COLOR is light reflected off of objects. It has three main characteristics: hue (the name of the

color such as red or green), value (how light or dark it is), and intensity (how bright or dull it is). • SHAPE is a closed line. Shapes can be geometric like squares or circles; or organic, like a

naturally found shape. Shapes are flat and can express length and width. • SPACE is the area between and around objects, which organizes elements in a composition. • FORMS are three-dimensional shapes expressing length, width, and depth such as boxes

pyramids and cylinders. • TEXTURE is a surface quality that can be seen and felt. Textures can be rough, smooth, soft or

hard. They do not always feel the same way as they look, therefore there are both real and implied textures.

• VALUE refers to the range of lightness and darkness within a composition.

Principles of Design • CONTRAST shows the differences between the elements of art (line, color, shape, value, space,

and texture). • REPETITION is the use of line, color, or a motif, in more than one place in a composition. • RHYTHM is the repeated use of similar elements such as color, line, or shape with a smooth

transition from one part to another. • PATTERN is created through the repetition of the same element to create an overall design. • MOVEMENT is the path the viewer’s eye takes through a work of art, often to focal areas. Such

movement can be directed along lines, edges, shapes, colors, and even through the gaze of the subject within a piece.

• BALANCE is the distribution of the visual weight of objects, colors, textures, and space in a work of art. A piece could visually be either symmetrical or asymmetrical in its overall “visual weight.”

• EMPHASIS is given to a center-of-interest, which might be the largest, brightest, or lightest subject in a piece. This creates a FOCAL POINT for the composition.

• UNITY is the harmony of all of the visual elements in a composition.

Name: Date: Period: Assignment: Analysis Worksheet Observation and Description Take a few moments to carefully examine the artwork. In your own words, write a description of the artwork using the following prompts.

Describe the sculpture’s appearance. What is the subject? Is it realistic, abstract, or non-representational?

___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________

List the texture and appearance of the materials. Is it smooth, rough, or rigid? Is it opaque, transparent, glossy, or matte?

___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________

Describe the size of the artwork and whether it is two-dimensional or three-dimensional:

___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________

Describe the space in and around the sculpture. Negative space refers to the voids and unoccupied space; positive space refers to the occupied areas.

___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________

Describe the figure’s gender and age. What details suggests your conclusion?

___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________

Examine the figure’s gestures and facial expression. What do you imaging the figure is thinking? Choose descriptive adjectives to describe the figure’s mood.

___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________

Describe the figure’s clothing. Does the clothing provide any clues as to who this person could be?

___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________

Consider your observations. How they contribute to the main idea? What is the subject of the artwork?

___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________

What do you think is the purpose of this sculpture? What did the artist hope to convey?

___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________

Figure 1. Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Honorably Discharged, 1916–1919

Bronze 54.6 × 19.1 × 15.2 cm (21 ½ × 7 ½ × 6 in)

Private collection

Figure 2. Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Sketch for Battle Scene No. 1, made for the

Madison Square Victory Arch, New York, N.Y., 1919 Graphite on paper

71.1 x 170.2 cm (28 x 67 in) The Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Studio,


Figure 3. Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Sketch for Battle Scene No. 2, made for the

Madison Square Victory Arch, New York, N.Y., 1919 Graphite on paper

71.1 x 170.2 cm (28 x 67 in The Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Studio,


Figure 4. Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Battle Scene No. 1, made for the Madison Square

Victory Arch, New York, N.Y., 1919 Bronze

63.5 × 165.1 × 15.2 cm (25 × 65 × 6 in) The Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Studio,


Figure 5. Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Battle Scene No. 2, made for the Madison Square

Victory Arch, New York, N.Y., 1919 Bronze

63.5 × 165.1 × 15.2 cm (25 × 65 × 6 in) The Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Studio,


Figure 6. Thomas Hastings Victory Arch, New York, N.Y., 1919

Wood and Plaster. Courtesy of the Library of Congress

Figure 7. Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Titanic Memorial, modeled 1912-15, carved circa 1916.

Granite 384.1 x 396.2cm (151 x 156 in)

Washington, D.C.

Figure 8. Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Barbara, 1913

Bronze 50.8 × 11.4 × 12.7 cm (20 × 4 ½ × 5 in)


Figure 9. Figure 9. Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Barbara, 1913

Plaster 41.9 × 10.2 × 8.9 cm (16 ½ × 4 × 3 ½ in)

Private collection

gertrude vanderbilt whitney lesson plan grades: 6 … vanderbilt whitney lesson plan grades: ......

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