Today we started our study of Impressionist sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840-1917, France).
We learned from our lesson in Artistic Pursuits (Book Three) that Rodin (pronounced roh DAN) was known for breaking away from the traditional methods and subjects of sculpture during his time. He was greatly inspired by the work of Michelangelo from the 1500's in which he left his sculptures partially unfinished in the stone he was carving from. Rodin thought that the viewer should be able to see how his sculptures were made- so he left his fingerprints in the clay. He also did sculptures of common people who were alive during his time, this was a new idea and was greatly rejected by art critics. We were able to see many of his sculptures by watching this video.
Afterwards we talked about what the kids thought of his sculptures and what common themes they saw throughout his work. They noticed: a lot of men, heads, hands, heads were always turned, people sitting, nudity, he liked to add a lot of details like veins and muscles. One of the things that Rodin was particularly interested in was the human hand. He made several series of hand sculptures, and even in his full bodied sculptures he paid special attention to the hands.
Over the next few art classes we will be doing a series of art based on our own hands and work up to a final clay hand sculpture. Today we started with the basics- tracing the hand and talking about the shape, then creating a piece of art with our traced hands. This was based on a series of hand art lessons we found here. The kids each got a large sheet of white paper and traced their hands onto the paper in any layout they chose.
Next, they used black fine point markers to trace the hand shape and fill in their hands with doodles and words that represent their personalities.
When their hands were filled in, they colored in the background using watercolor paints.
Here they are- each of the kids personalities reflected in their own hands!
Next time, we will learn more about Rodin and use the same lesson plans to make wire sculptures of our hands.
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