Term 1 - JMW Turner OR John Constable
(Choose which one you love the most or pick three from each and then do a comparison study. See this comparison study)
- Fisherman at Sea (1796)(his first painting)
- Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps (1812) (optional: compare with his other snow storm painting here
- The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons (1835)
- The Fighting Temeraire Tugged to Her Last Berth to Be Broken up (1838)
- Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway (1844)
- Norham Castle, Sunrise(1845)(one of his last paintings, it was unfinished and unexhibited)
John Constable (Khan Academy bio )
- Dedham Vale (1802) See here.
- Wivenhoe Park (1816))
- Flatford Mill (Scene on a Navigable River) (1816) (a small write-up is here.) This is the largest canvas he painted at about 6 feet.
- The Hay Wain (1821)
- Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop’s Grounds (1823) Compare with this version.
- Hadleigh Castle (1829)
Term 2 - Edgar Degas
Beginner’s Guide to Impressionism article
- The Bellelli Family (1859)
- Little Dancer of Fourteen Years (1881), the only sculpture that he ever exhibited, though he created others
- A Cotton Office in New Orleans, 1873 (the only painting to be purchased by a museum during his lifetime)
- The Dance Class (La Classe de Danse), 1873
- Place de la Concorde (1876)
- After the Bath, Woman Drying Herself (1890) (Degas used photographs to assist in the execution of this painting!)
Term 3 - Grandma Moses
A documentary made before she died: Grandma Moses! America’s Most Loved Painter of Folk Art! See this lesson plan for ideas on discussing her art.
- Cairo (1933) embroidered wool and silk on canvas
- Shenandoah Valley (1938)
- The Old Checkered House, 1860 (1942)
The Checkered House was a local legend. Situated along the Cambridge Turnpike, it was an inn where stagecoach drivers had changed horses as far back as the eighteenth century. During the Revolutionary War, the inn served as General Baum’s headquarters and field hospital. Its checkerboard front made the house a distinctive landmark that was remembered long after it burned in 1907. Moses painted a number of versions of “Checkered House,” in both winter and summer. When asked how she managed to come up with a new composition each time, she said she imagined the scene as if she were looking at it through a window. By then shifting her viewpoint slightly, she could cause the elements to fall into place differently. Compare with this one, this one, and this one in winter.
- Taking in the Laundry (1951) Moses recalled that the painting was inspired by a poem she had learned in school as a child. Some seventy years later, she could still recite it by heart:
Oh, Monday was our washing day,
and while the clothes were drying,
a wind came whistling through the line
and set them all a-flying.
I saw the shirts and petticoats
go flying off like witches.
I lost (oh bitterly I wept),
I lost my Sunday breeches.
I saw them flying through the air,
alas too late to save them.
A hole was in their ample part,
as if an imp had worn them.
- Sugaring Off (1955) Like the checkered house paintings, Grandma Moses painted many version of this iconic early sprint event; see also.
- The Rainbow (1961), her last finished painting
Jennifer Gehman is a co-creator of Wildwood Curriculum, a certified teacher, and a facilitator with the Neufeld Institute. She lives and plays with her partner and five children in Canada. Though four of her oldest have graduated from homeschool they still ask her to edit their university papers. Her youngest is still learning in the living room.
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