Tonight's picture was taken in May of 2008, only two months before Mattie was diagnosed with cancer. It was grandparents day at Mattie's school and I happened to be one of the lucky parents who got to volunteer on that occasion. I am so happy I did because I got to experience the day and Mattie showing my parents around his classroom and school.
Quote of the day: No one has ever looked at Matisse's paintings more carefully than I; and no one has looked at mine more carefully than he. ~ Pablo Picasso
Today was may last kindergarten art session (of a three part series) at Mattie's school. After doing this series for five years now, I know that the first session is always an adjustment and it gets better over time. The children are not used to learning in the format that I present the content to them. But at this age, they catch on quickly and learn quickly. In all reality I am asking them to sit through a mini lecture that involves power point slides. This would be how I would conduct my graduate classes, but I can't imagine most elementary classes run this way. So they are not used to focusing for this period of time or in this manner. Yet what I find intriguing is that their minds absorb facts and they don't only absorb them, they retain them! Better than most of my college students did. I could teach a college class one week and come back the next week and ask them to recap what we did the week before and maybe 10% could. When you ask a kindergarten student what you covered the week before, I would say 90% or more get it! I was so impressed today with the facts they listed off about Matisse and Picasso. They were able to tell me.....................
Picasso -- he was bold, passionate, scruffy, and impulsive.
1. Painted
from IMAGINATION.
2. Was the
Master of Drawing and Shapes.
3. A founder of cubism (painting shapes and objects in an abstract
manner - instead of depicting objects from one viewpoint, the artist depicts the
subject from multiple viewpoints to represent it in greater context)
Matisse
-- he was reserved, aloof, dapper, and cultured.
1. Painted
from NATURE.
2. Was the
Master of Color.
3. A founder of fauvism (the use of strong color that may not be representational or realistic in nature).
The third session focused upon the friendship and rivalry between Picasso and Matisse. I first had to explain what rivalry meant. They did not know that word, but they clearly understood the notion of competition! Yet it did not make sense how you could be friends with someone and yet be jealous of them and want to compete with them! Isn't that a beautiful notion?! The beauty of being 6! Yet as I explained the lives of the artists and then showed several pieces of their art, side by side they could see how Picasso and Matisse really tried in many ways to almost copy each other's style. As Picasso's quote points out tonight..... no one studied Matisse's works more carefully than he! With that, Picasso integrated color and more fluidity into his works, while Matisse learned to incorporate shapes into his paintings. None of these artists would have integrated these additions if it wasn't for their rivalry between them, and if they both weren't striving to achieve a number one status over the other. Yet it was most likely this rivalry which forced them to be even greater artists than they were and it was well documented that despite their rivalry when Matisse died (he was 12 years old than Picasso), Picasso truly grieved this loss. Since he felt that no one quite understood him or the depths of his paintings like Matisse.
Since both Picasso and Matisse were well known for painting a still life, that was the subject matter I had the children paint today on their own canvases. Of course this doesn't magically happen! I went into the classroom yesterday afternoon and set up the display of flowers, tablecloth, and fruit. Along with each child's table with a canvas, paint brushes, and paint trays.
The instructions we gave them was that they could paint the still life on display in the classroom in a Matisse or Picasso type style. Or of course combine them, like the art work we had studied today. The children were very concerned that there was a right way to do this, or "should" they do the painting a particular way? We assured them there were NO SHOULD'S! That so much of what they saw in front of them was up to their interpretation, as we saw with Matisse and Picasso, who could paint the same subject matter and yet the paintings would look totally different from one another.
Check out some of the finished products below. The children were all looking at a blue vase filled with sunflowers and other yellow flowers, sitting on top of a powder blue tablecloth. Along side the vase were oranges, apples, and bananas. As you can see each one is a masterpiece in its own right!
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