Field Trip

Art Investigators: Faces and Places

As "art investigators," students will look for clues and use their imaginations to explore portraits, landscapes, and scenes of everyday life. During this interactive field trip, students will engage in careful-looking, simple art-making and small group work to foster connections to art.

A small child stands facing us on a sun-dappled path that runs up the center of a garden dominated by towering yellow and burnt-orange sunflowers in this loosely painted, vertical scene. The light comes from our right so long, sea-green and plum-purple shadows cross the peach-colored path. The path is wide at the bottom center of the canvas and narrows as it reaches the steps of a house, beyond the garden. Close to us, four blue and white porcelain urns line the path, separating it from the grassy banks to either side. The urns are filled with tall stems with coral-pink and cardinal-red flowers. The child stands about halfway back along the path, where the garden transitions from grass to the banks of tall sunflowers. A few strokes in front of the child could be a small dog. Behind the child, a woman and another child stand on the steps. The woman wears a cornflower-blue and white dress, while both children have bare legs and wear white clothes and yellow hats. All three have indistinct facial features and peach-colored skin. The house spans with width of the composition. It has an amethyst-purple roofline with two chimneys, and the petal-pink walls have mango-yellow highlights. Windows are covered with blue latticework. Above the house, fluffy white clouds float against a vibrant blue sky. The artist signed and dated the painting at the lower right in dark blue, “Claude Monet 80.”
Claude Monet, The Artist's Garden at Vétheuil, 1881, oil on canvas, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection, 1970.17.45

Grade Level

Subject

Duration

60 minutes

Language

Schedule a Field Trip

Looking and Learning Skills

During four or five field trip stops, the following skills are promoted:

  • Observing, describing, and sharing ideas about the works of art.
  • Developing interpretations about art by drawing on clues, prior knowledge, and imagination.
  • Making personal connections to work of art.
  • Feeling a sense of belonging in the museum setting.

  • In-Person Field Trip Information

    Group Size: Up to 90 students
    Length: 60 minutes
    Meeting Location: West Building Rotunda

  • Virtual Field Trip Information

    Length: 60 minutes

  • Important Scheduling Information

    Field trips must be scheduled at least four weeks in advance. Groups must contain at least 15 students.

    Once your field trip has been scheduled, you will receive an email confirmation within ten business days.

  • Bus Transportation

    Bus transportation is available for DCPS (District of Columbia Public Schools) participating in our docent-led school field trips. Teachers should follow the guidelines to apply for bus transportation.

Examples of Works Featured on this Field Trip

This sculpture is of a young girl in a ballet costume standing before us with her hands clasped behind her lower back, her head tipped back, and her chin thrust forward. The skin of her face, arms, chest, and legs are covered in bronze-brown wax, and her body faces us in this photograph. The sleeveless, putty-gray bodice of her costume fits tightly above a layered, fabric, pale, tea-brown tutu, and she wears ballet shoes. Her hair is pulled back but bangs sweep across her forehead, brushing her nearly closed, heavy eyelids. Her lips are slightly parted, and light catches the broad planes of her cheekbones. Her shoulders are drawn back by her pose, holding her hands behind her with arms straight, and her hips jut slightly forward. She stands with her right foot extended in front of her, with both feet turned out, parallel to each other. She stands on a square, wood platform.
Edgar Degas, Little Dancer Aged Fourteen, plaster cast possibly 1920/1921, after original wax modelled 1878-1881, painted plaster, fabric, metal armature, on plaster base, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1985.64.62

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A close-up view of a deep plum-purple jack-in-the-pulpit flower surrounded by emerald-green leaves fills this vertical painting. The flower is narrow at its base, where it is striped with white and pale lilac purple, and it flares open like a trumpet in the top half of this composition. The unfurled petal is streaked with wavy white and magenta-pink veins around a deep purple tube-like stalk emerging from inside the base. Leaves in spring and kelly green billow up around the base of the flower along the bottom of the canvas, and more leaves surround the top of the flower. The area behind the pointed, curling tip of the flower glows with a lemon-lime yellow. The space around the flower and bewteen the green leaves is mauve pink.

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