Art Appreciation and the National Gallery's Videodisc
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Joyce's curriculum was the outgrowth of skills acquired in several art enrichment programs taken over the years. In 1989 she participated in the National Gallery's Teacher Institute where she and her colleagues studied multidisciplinary approaches to teaching American art, and in 1990, she returned for the program on French impressionism and postimpressionism. She has also participated in teacher institutes sponsored by the Getty Center for Education in the Arts, in which she was first introduced to art educator Edmund Feldman's methods of visual analysis and art criticism. |
Starting
with the idea of teaching art appreciation skills to her kindergarten
students, Joyce Renshaw ended up developing her own curriculum in the
visual arts using large scale art reproductions and the Inspired in part by Feldman's progressive stages of visual analysis, Joyce developed a method for asking open-ended questions that allowed children to describe, analyze, and interpret what they see in a particular image. Called "Learning to Read Art," Joyce's teaching approach encourages students to begin by observing the structural elements of the work: the use of line, color, shape, texture, perspective, balance, repetition, rhythm, contrast, and emphasis in composition. They also study the work's historical context, including how it relates to styles of different periods and how it may reflect issues central to the artist's life and time period.
Joyce soon found that students began incorporating art terms into their everyday vocabulary. Parents began to comment about their children's newfound art skills, and complained (tongue-in-cheek) that they were being dragged to museums by their offspring. One proud parent reported that, while watching a TV program, his son walked through the room and casually observed that the image on the wall of the TV studio set was by Vincent van Gogh. Another parent reported a conversation between her kindergarten-aged daughter and her third-grade son, who said he wanted to be a famous painter when he grew up. The kindergartner immediately queried: "Are you going to paint realistic or abstract pictures?"
Parents were so impressed and intrigued by their children's progress that a group of them asked Joyce to teach an adult class in art appreciation -- a class that evolved into an adult night school course.
About the Videodisc: European Art from the National Gallery of Art
From Raphael and Rembrandt to Claude Monet and Henri Matisse, this videodisc provides still-frame images of more than 2,700 works of European art. Objects include virtually all of the National Gallery's collections of European paintings and sculpture as well as numerous works on paper -- drawings, watercolors, and prints. Detail options allow the viewer to examine and study each work at close range. The random-access capabilities of videodisc technology permit the user to show the images and details in any sequence and to relate images to a theme or subject of choice. The still-frame archive of images is complemented by a thirty-minute introductory video on side one that provides a brief history of European art as represented in the National Gallery. Printed index of the still-frame section. Catalogue Order #LD305
Available free of charge for a nine-month loan period, permitting extended use in classroom or library settings.
Also available:
- American Art from the National Gallery of Art Videodisc
- National Gallery of Art CD-ROM
- Introducing the Collection: Teaching Guide and Slides
- National Gallery of Art: A Treasury of Masterpieces Video
Visit NGA Loan Programs for ordering details and a full online catalogue.