Mommio: Art Class- Impressionists- Rodin

through me you enter into the city of woes
through me you enter into eternal pain,
through me you enter the population of loss.
. . .
abandon all hope, you who enter here.

-Dante's Inferno

Today we continued our study of French Impressionist sculptor August Rodin by taking a closer look at one of his most famous pieces, The Thinker.

We learned that The Thinker was not originally an individual sculpture, instead it was the centerpiece in a much larger work Rodin spent many years on, The Gates of Hell.   

 The Gates of Hell was based on the scene in Dante's Inferno when Dante and Virgil approach the Gate to Hell.  The original Thinker was actually a representation of Dante looking down on the view of Hell that he had created in his famous epic poem, The Divine Comedy (1308).  We watched this movie looking at the creation of Rodin's version of The Gates of Hell and how he was influenced by the poem itself and well as by other artist's interpretation of the characters in Dante's work.

After that serious look at the subject we had a little fun and talked about what we thought The Thinker might actually be thinking. Here's what the kids came up with:

 For today's project we made wire hand sculptures based on a lesson we found here.  First the kids each traced one hand on construction paper to make a pattern.

 Next they chose a color of beading wire, straightened it out and used it to outline their pattern on the paper.

 They got to practice using craft wire cutters to cut off the excess wire.  At this point they each had a basic hand shaped wire.

 To add interest to their sculpture they chose other colors of wire to wrap and decorate the hand.  Making sure to firmly connect the wires to each other by wrapping the ends tightly.

 When they were happy with the sculpture we added a straight wire at the bottom of each hand so that we could poke it into a foam base (which we had already spray painted black).

Here are the kids with their hands!