The National Gallery of Art
4th and Constitution Ave., N.W.
Washington, DC 20565
(202)842-6249 (Educational Tours)
Curriculum Unit:
Integrated Language Arts - Creative Interpretations of Autumn on the Hudson River by Jasper Cropsey and other American landscapes of the nineteenth century.
Instructional Unit:
Grade 4, 5, 6
Art, Language Arts
Objectives:
The Students will:
1. Describe the Hudson River scene as portrayed by Cropsey.
2. Recognize characteristics of the Hudson River School tradition to which Cropsey was related.
3. Observe how color and composition techniques create the mood of a painting just as composition and verbal color create the mood of a story.
4. Discuss how Cropsey's painting differs from other interpretations of similar scenes.
Pre-Visit Activities:
Students will be introduced to Jasper Cropsey's works and background at school, using National Gallery prints, slides and American Art books. Cropsey's most significant contribution to American Art are his autumn landscapes.
On-Site Activities:
1. I will request a docent specializing in American Art, especially landscape, who can extend and enrich my initial presentation on Cropsey's painting and present other samples.
2. Explain how the Hudson River School painters worked in areas of the river up from New York City near the Catskill Mountains. When we view Cropsey's masterpiece, Autumn on the Hudson River, at the National Gallery, we will first discuss the viewpoint of the artist:
a. Where could he be standing?
b. What do you see in the painting?
c. What details has the artist included which confirm that he was a lover of nature?
d. What colors does the artist use? e. What are the human figures doing? 3. Choose a figure from the painting. Use your senses to describe the look, sound, taste, smell and feel of the place from the character's viewpoint:
a. My character sees...
b. My character hears...
c. My character tastes...
d. My character smells...
e. My character touches...
4. How many different animals has the artist drawn? What type of village did the artist include?
5. After our interpretive discussion of Cropsey's Hudson River painting on site, I would like a docent from the American Art tour to highlight other artists' landscape paintings from this period. The students can then compare and contrast styles of these painters.
Follow-Up Activities:
1. Describe the painting to a classmate when you return to school.
2. How does this picture make you feel? (Write down one word describing your mood. Can you think of another title that would capture the mood of this picture? What time of day do you think it is? What details support your answer? What kind of day is it? Provide supportive details. Why do you think the artist included people and animals in the painting? How important are they? Why do you think the artist included dead wood and brush, peeling birch bark, and hints of erosion in the picture? Why did he add new growth to the wood? Why do you think the hunters are looking at the sky? Where does the artist eventually want to take us? Why? How would you describe the artist's brush strokes when making the trees, sky, water, clouds, etc.? Pretend you are one of the figures in this painting. Where would you place yourself in this painting to create a setting for a story? Write a story from your viewpoint in this time and place. What place would be a good setting for...
a. an animal story
b. a love story
c. a scary story
d. a mystery story
e. a sports story
f. a fairy tale
g. a tall tale
h. an adventure?
3. Students may try out some of the prepared questions and may incorporate some of their observations and thoughts.
4. Students will compare Cropsey's conception of Autumn on the Hudson River to Kensett's work at the Corcoran Gallery and the work of other artists of this period. Collect fall foliage similar to the varieties in Cropsey's painting. Try to duplicate the colors with paints or some other medium in your own painting. Sketch the landscape from a hill near Howard University and the reservoir or the Potomac River using some of Cropsey's techniques. Create a sunken poem to describe the mood of this painting. Use the following format....
Noun -1 Word
Adjectives - 2 Words
"Ing" Describes - 3 Words
Descriptive Phrase - 4 Words
Synonym - 1 Word referring to line one
5. Students will keep journals on their trips for personal evaluations. Follow-up stories and writing activities will be evaluated on a continuing basis. Quality of discussion and class contributions will be taken into account. I usually do an informal evaluation with the docent at the museum right after the tour. Many times the students will share their learning in written or picture form when writing a thank you note to a particular docent.
6. My students usually share their written poems or stories and various forms of art work in our school lobby and multi-purpose room. We hang up our museum reproductions and attach our poems and stories to them. We make scrap books of all our trips and share them at P.T.A. meetings and parent teas, etc. We submit articles to the school newspaper about our various escapades.
Appendices:
None
Bibliography:
Robyn Aleson and Barbara Moore. Dialogue With Nature: Land scape and Literature in Nineteenth Century America (Washington, D.C.: The Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1985)
Barbara Novak. American Painting of the Nineteenth Century: Real ism, Idealism, and the American Experience (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980).
University of Maryland. Cropsey, Jasper Francis, 1823-1900: A Ret rospective View of America's Painter of Autumn (College Park, Md.: University of Maryland, 1968).
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