“Bourgeois” Portrait

by with No Comment ArtBasil and Elise Goulandris Foundation AthensStudent Activities

Your tour of the new Basil and Elise Goulandris Foundation in Athens should start from the 4th floor… recommends the helpful Museum operator, and I hesitantly followed his recommendation. I was pleasantly surprised! An impressive “Bourgeois” Portrait of Basil and Elise Goulandris welcomed me, setting the tone for what I was about to experience.

Painted four years after Basil Goulandris’s passing, this eye-catching Portrait of the famous art collectors by George Rorris introduces you to the “atmosphere” that prevails in the latest cultural addition to the Athens Museum circuit! It’s grand, elegant yet understated. Basil Goulandris, clad in a dark suit, stands tall and aloof, staring at you intensely. Elise on the other hand, wearing the softest of pink, sits charmingly on an armchair and looks beyond you. They are surrounded by three favourite paintings from their legendary collection and a mirror that holds a secret worth exploring!

Little information is unfortunately provided by the Foundation on the “whats, the hows and the whys” of this painting. I hope, as time progresses, part of their “Permanent Collection” site will get richer with short descriptions and information on each and every one of their paintings. https://goulandris.gr/en/collection/works-of-art and https://goulandris.gr/en/artwork/rorris-george-portrait-of-basil-and-elise-goulandris

Basil and Elise Goulandris were known for their passionate love of the arts. They were avid collectors, famous for their superb “taste” and acute “eye.” ‘I spent months at a time with Basil and Elise when I was a child,’ says Fleurette Karadontis ‘they had no children of their own — they looked on the paintings as their children. The works were a genuine presence in their lives, a constant part of the conversation. Basil might suddenly say: look there, I never realised that the colour of the shirt in that painting is the same as the wall behind that still life. Or he would look at some cubist painting and ask: how many people do you see in it because I think there are three.’ https://www.christies.com/features/A-gift-to-Greece-the-Goulandris-Foundation-10209-1.aspx

For High School level student Activities on the George Rorris “Bourgeois” Portrait of Basil and Elise Goulandris… Click HERE!

Medusa

by with No Comment BaroqueStudent Activities
Elementary level student work

Medusa was once upon a time an entrancing maiden, the only mortal sister of the three Gorgons, attractive for her beauty originally, feared as an image of evil later, when Athena’s anger turned her into a hideous monster… According to the Roman Poet Ovid (Metamorphoses 4.770), Athena was so fierce in her punishment, Medusa’s hair was transformed into venomous snakes, and her once lovely face, looked upon, petrified the viewer.

To save his mother Danae from the much-unwanted attention of king Polydectes of Seriphos, young Perseus was tasked with the impossible, killing Medusa. Perseus, however, was not alone and helpless in his adventure. He carried with him divine gifts, Athena’s mirrored shield, Hermes’s gold, winged sandals, Hephaestus’s adamantine sword and Hades’s helmet of invisibility. According to Ovid Perseus was successful, Medusa head was cut and ultimately ended up in Athena’s Aegis.

“Medusa in Ancient Greek Art” is a Metropolitan Museum of Art article worth reading: https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/medu/hd_medu.htm

“flee, for if your eyes are petrified in amazement, she will turn you to stone,” wrote Gaspare Mustola, an Italian poet and writer of the 17th century, and Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio painted the most amazing Medusa head of all time!

Caravaggio, 1571-1610
Medusa, 1597, oil on canvas mounted on wood, 60 cm × 55 cm, Uffizi, Florence

My Grade 3 students love the terrifying Myth of the Medusa and creating a Mask is always a successful Activity! The best Mask by far is offered by the Cleveland Museum of Art… which I use every year with student enthusiasm and great success! https://www.clevelandart.org/sites/default/files/documents/other/MakeaMaskofMedusa.pdf

For a PowerPoint on the student Mask Activity… check HERE!

Leonardo da Vinci

by with No Comment NewsPowerpointsRenaissance
La Belle Ferronnière (detail), 1495 – 1499, oil on wood, 62 cm × 44 cm, Louvre Museum, Paris Photo Copyright: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50127095
…and her mesmerizing eyes

Five hundred years ago, one of the greatest Renaissance Homo Universalis passed away at the Château du Clos Lucé, in the Loire Valley. The Louvre Museum, wishing to commemorate the fifth centenary of the artist’s death, organizes an International Retrospective Exhibition on Leonardo da Vinci and his oeuvre. https://www.louvre.fr/en/expositions/leonardo-da-vinci

The Louvre Museum in Paris holds the largest collection in the world of the artist’s paintings, five of the fourteen to seventeen paintings now attributed to Leonardo, as well as 22 drawings. This collection is the core of the Retrospective that will also present “the latest research findings, critical editions of key documents and the results of the latest analysis carried out in laboratories or during recent conservation treatment by the Louvre.” https://www.louvre.fr/en/leonardo-da-vinci

A unique feature that the Exhibition presents to its visitors is the Virtual Reality experience for the Mona Lisa painting, the first of its kind at the Louvre. Virtual Reality enables visitors to go through the glass-case that protects the Mona Lisa and see minute details within the painting invisible otherwise to the naked eye. https://arts.vive.com/us/articles/projects/art-photography/mona_lisa_beyond_the_glass/ and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au_UpzhzHwk

The PowerPoint I use for my Art History class on the artist… is HERE!

Reverence for Nature and Tiffany

by with No Comment American ArtArt NouveauJewelryStudent ActivitiesWorksheets
Tiffany’s Incredible Hair Pin

Reverence for Nature and Tiffany is my latest BLOG Post. It is about an extraordinary Hair Ornament in the MET Collection portraying two Dragonflies and Dandelions. Created in 1904 for Louisine Havemeyer, a great collector of Impressionist Art and one of Tiffany’s most ardent patrons, the Metropolitan Museum Hair Pin is my favourite Art Nouveau piece of Jewelry. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/2046

When I think of Louis Comfort Tiffany, I think of nature’s power, its brittleness, yet joy. I think of radiance, luminosity and brilliance in colour. I think of superb craftsmanship… as exemplified in the MET’s Dragonfly and Dandelion Hair Ornament. According to Alice Cooney Frelinghuyse in the MET, the Hair Ornament “epitomizes his earliest jewelry designs, which were based directly on modest forms in nature, such as field flowers and wild fruit, as well as his affinity for enamelling and semiprecious stones with unusual colors. The dragonflies rest on dandelion seedballs, one of which is shown partially blown away, underscoring the fragility of nature. Highly skilled artisans conveyed the transparency of the insects’ wings through delicate metalwork filigree. The temporal quality is revealed in the subject: dragonflies rest in one place for mere seconds before flitting away; dandelions disperse into thousands of airborne seeds with the gentlest of breezes.” file:///C:/Users/aspil/Downloads/Recent_Acquisitions_A_Selection_2002_2003_The_Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art_Bulletin_v_61_no_2_Fall_2003%20(1).pdf

For a short PowerPoint on Louis Comfort Tiffany… click HERE!

A Grade 4 or 5 student Activity on Reverence for Nature and Tiffany is HERE!

https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/2002.620/

I am… How I see myself

by with No Comment Ancient Greek ArtCycladic ArtNews

I am… How I see myself is the new 2020, Athens Museum of Cycladic Art student contest. It’s a wonderful tradition that humbly started back in 2013, and today, 7 years later, counts more than 23,000 students participants. This year the Museum “invites children aged 4-15 years (preschool, grade school, and junior high school) to take inspiration from a Cypriot bronze mirror dating to 1200-1050 BC and displayed on the Museum’s third floor Cyprus – Ancient Art and Culture section.” The Museum of Cycladic Art asks students “to present themselves to the world as they see themselves, starting with a mirror.” https://cycladic.gr/en/paidikos-diagonismos

Back in 2017, the Museum’s young friends, aged 4-12 were invited to take part in a drawing competition titled “See the Stattuete Differently.” Students were to be inspired by a Cypriot Board-like Stattuete of the 2nd Millenium BC.

My Grade 4 Social Studies students, along with their wonderful teacher Ms. Alexia M., responded wholeheartedly. We joined forces to take part in this competition. Students used the Museum’s “Figurine” Template, crayons, markers, coloured papers, newspapers, cloth or beads, feathers… their vivid imagination and we sent 20 figurines transformed into “American Heroes”!

Over 15.000 students from all over Greece participated, but the works of only 398 students were awarded with distinction. Pinewood’s Grade 4 student, Sofia P. was one of them and we are still sincerely proud!

This year’s Contest I am… How I see myself is a new challenge we will jointly face with Pinewood’s talented Art Teacher Mrs. Fiona G. Needless to say… I am excited!!!

Stay tuned…

Renaissance Triptych… fresh

by with No Comment ArtRenaissanceStudent Activities
Duccio di Buoninsegna, Sienese, c. 1255 – 1318
The Nativity with the Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel, a component of the original Maestà, 1308/1311, tempera on a single panel, NGA, Washington, DC

Renaissance Triptych… fresh is a RWAP (Research-Writing-Art-Project) designed for my high school elective class on Art History. It touches upon Sienese 14th century Art, Duccio, the great master of the time, his most important oeuvre, the Maestà altarpiece, and Triptych Icons.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines Triptych as “a picture (such as an altarpiece) or carving in three panels side by side.” It further defines Triptych as having Greek roots. “Triptych derives from the Greek triptychos (“having three folds”), formed by combining tri- (“three”) and ptychē (“fold” or “layer”),” and it continues “although triptych originally described a specific type of Roman writing tablet that had three hinged sections, it is not surprising that the idea was generalized first to a type of painting, and then to anything composed of three parts.” https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/triptych

Wonderful information on Duccio’s Maestà can be accessed at https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.10.html and basically https://www.nga.gov/collection/highlights/duccio-the-nativity-with-the-prophets-isaiah-and-ezekiel.html

“On the day on which it was carried to the Duomo, the shops were locked up . . . and all the populace and all the most worthy were in order next to the said panel with lights lit in their hands, and then behind were women and children with much devotion; and they accompanied it right to the Duomo . . . sounding all the bells in glory out of devotion for such a noble panel as was this.” Anonymous mid-14th-century description of a procession to carry Duccio’s Maestà from the artist’s studio to the Siena Cathedral (L. A. Muratori, Rerum italiarum scriptores (Bologna, 1931–1939), xv/6, 90

The Renaissance Triptych… fresh RWAP is… HERE!

For a PP on Student work inspired by Renaissance Triptych… fresh RWAP, please… check HERE!

Thank you Brother Peter

by with No Comment News

Thank you Brother Peter Tabichi for shaking me up, reminding me of my goals, aspirations and visions as a teacher. I owe another thank you to my dear colleague Christina P. for bringing this BBC News article to my attention: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47658803?fbclid=IwAR2rtKb_p6KKyhHV_9IijHcu6PM6Qtpr-LRaBw00iYh1tjResM1S6i0newE.

Brother Peter is a Franciscan monk and science teacher at the Keriko Mixed Day Secondary School in Pwani Village, Nakuru, Kenya, with a vision. “He wants pupils to see ‘science is the way to go’ for their futures.” Brother Peter is a doer. He gives away 80% of his salary to support his pupils, but “it’s not all about money,” he says. It’s about raising aspirations, comprehending the essence and importance of science for development, not just in Kenya but across Africa.

While facing “challenges with a lack of facilities,” not enough books or teachers, overcrowded classrooms of 70 or 80 students, the lack of a reliable internet connection, pupils who walk more than 6km to reach the school, he believes that “Africa’s young people will no longer be held back by low expectations. Africa will produce scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs whose names will one day be famous in every corner of the world. And girls will be a huge part of this story.”

How does Brother Peter achieve the many challenges he faces? He works hard persuading the local community and his students’ families to recognize the value of education. The majority of his students face serious problems, but he visits families at home and persuades them not to let their boys drop out of school, and in cases of girls, not to get them married at an early age. In my humble opinion, Father Peter truly CARES!

Brother Peter is the recipient of the 2019 Varkey Foundation Global Teacher Award https://www.varkeyfoundation.org/. He happily said “It’s morning in Africa. The skies are clear. The day is young and there is a blank page waiting to be written. This is Africa’s time” https://www.globalteacherprize.org/winners/peter-tabichi/

For a wonderful video that further enhances this post on Thank you Brother Peter, please see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4kl6b2D0MY

Brother Peter, you make me wonder… how can we get back a little bit of your passion and drive in our privileged world of “high-end,” fortunate, expensive, highly technological educational system? Much can be improved, I believe, “in the rotten state of Denmark”…

Tick-Tock Bedroom Clock

by with No Comment ArtPowerpointsRococoStudent Activities
The work of a Grade 9 student! on the Tick-Tock, Bedroom Clock RWAP

Tick-Tock Bedroom Clock was inspired by the Getty Museum Activity: http://www.getty.edu/education/teachers/classroom_resources/curricula/decarts/decarts_lesson05.html. It has developed into a RWAP (Research-Writing-Art-Project) much liked by my students.

How fascinating can a Rococo Clock be to a High School student today? I am always surprised to discover that students respond positively and enthusiastically to the enjoyable, cheerful and carefree style of the 18th century we call Rococo. “Artists working in this frivolous aesthetic built upon the flamboyance of the Baroque period, adapting its awe-inspiring aesthetic to produce equally extravagant yet distinctively playful works of art.”

Do you know that “The term Rococo is derived from rocaille, a special method of decorating fountains and grottoes that dates back to the Italian Renaissance?” Artists using this technique “would mix seashells, pebbles, and other organic materials with cement, culminating in a naturalistic, under-the-sea-inspired medium.”

Rococo Decorative Arts are equally important and fascinating to painting and sculpture. They “often incorporate intricate, asymmetrical forms.” Their “serpentine silhouettes are inherently naturalistic yet undoubtedly exaggerated and are found in a range of objects, including intricate tables and eye-catching candelabra…” and Tick-Tock Clocks… I would add.

All quotations come from April 29, 2018, well-written to say the least article titled Celebrate the Elegance and Exuberance of French Rococo Art at MY MODERN MET https://mymodernmet.com/rococo-art/ site.

For more examples of student work, please… check HERE!

The Tick-Tock Bedroom Clock student Worksheet is… HERE!

A PowerPoint on Rococo Clocks is… HERE!

The Jasper Cup from Vatopedi

by with No Comment ArtByzantiumPowerpointsWorksheets

The Jasper Cup from Vatopedi is one of the most famous Late Byzantine works of art. It is a Chalice of silver-work and stone-carving, a rare example of refined craftsmanship, one of the finest pieces of the Palaeologan period. It belonged to Manuel Cantacuzenos Palaeologos (1349-80), Despot of Mystra, son of Emperor John VI Cantacuzenos (1347-54) and grandson of Theodore Palaeologus, Despot of Mystra.

The Cup, carved out of a piece of jasper, was created in a Byzantine workshop, in the shape of an antique broad-lipped wine-cup. The inscription on its rim reads “and he gave it to his disciples and apostles saying, drink of this, all of you …”. As this is the prayer from the Eucharist, as given in the Liturgy of St Basil, the Vatopedi Chalice was used as an ecclesiastical vessel.

The base is octagonal, its eight sections decorated with medallions containing, alternately, cruciform monograms and half-length hierarchs holding open scrolls. The monograms identify the owner of the vessel: M (Manuel), Δ (Despot), Κ (Cantacuzenos), Π (Palaeologus). For a more detailed presentation of the Chalice, please check: https://www.elpenor.org/athos/en/e218ci14.asp

The metalwork decoration, following byzantine models, intriguing techniques, and borrowed Gothic motifs, proves that a “Byzantine-Gothic” marriage of styles can create exquisite results.

For a PowerPoint on Byzantine Chalices, please… Check HERE!

For the Student Activity, I was inspired by Sarah Stone’s Work on “Byzantine Chalices”. I showed the students her work http://www.sarah-stone.net/byzantine-paintings.html and HERE! is what my Grade 4 students created!!!

Byzantine Chalices, inspired by The Jasper Cup of Vatopedi and Sarah Stone’s Byzantine Paintings

Hercules at the Crossroads

by with No Comment Ancient Greek ArtHeraclesMythologyNewsPowerpointsStudent ActivitiesWorksheets
Hercules at the Crossroads Bulletin Board Display

Hercules at the Crossroads is an ancient Greek parable. It came down to us through Xenophone but is attributed to Prodicus of Ceos, a 5th-century philosopher. According to Prodicus, young Hercules, at the threshold of adulthood, meets two women, personifications of Virtue and Vice, and faces a choice. One of the women is beautiful but dignified, dressed modestly, looking genuine and pure. The other is equally beautiful but voluptuous in form, richly dressed, looking superficial. They represent the two paths of life, that of Virtue and that of Vice, and Hercules chooses Virtue, the road of honour, hard work but noble deeds.

Created thousands of years ago, the  Greek Myths of Hercules tell us epic stories, adventures of demigods, heroes and monsters, tales of love, loyalty, betrayal, friendship, bravery…  They show that gods and heroes, very much like ordinary humans, men and women alike, can be right or wrong, fail or succeed, love or hate. Hercules and his extraordinary deeds offer our students a glimpse into the lives of the Ancient Greek people, their culture and art.

The parable of Hercules at the Crossroads became a popular motif in Western art, just like the lovely hand-fan from the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/hercules-crossroads-30805

For my Grade 1 Host Country Studies class, I decided to do a HAND-FAN Activity. We created simple, paper HAND-FANS and we decorated them with WORDS representing the concepts of VIRTUE and VICE. We added a beautiful coloured ribbon and… Voila!!!

Words of Virtue or Vice HAND-FAN Activity

For the Worksheet on the Activity, please… Check HERE!

For the PowerPoint, please… Check HERE!