Field Trip

Breaking the Rules

What is modern about modern art? Students investigate how artists "break the rules" when they depart from realistic representation, use innovative techniques, and engage the viewer as a partner in creating meaning-making.

Olafur Eliasson, Thinking Sphere, 2011, stainless steel dark gray backside mirror and colored glass, Gift of The Tony and Trisja Podesta Collection, Washington, DC, 2023.80.2

Grade Level

Subject

Duration

75 minutes

Language

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Looking and Learning Skills

During four or five field trip stops, students engage in activities—such as looking exercises, sketching, and small-group work—that foster conversations around works of art. The following skills are promoted:

  • Making and articulating careful observations.
  • Formulating questions that demonstrate curiosity and engagement.
  • Exploring multiple viewpoints within the group.
  • Comparing and connecting different works of art.
  • Reasoning with evidence from the artworks themselves.
  • Developing new ideas about modern art.
  • In-Person Field Trip Information

    Group size: Up to 60 students
    Length: 75 minutes
    Meeting Location: East Building Atrium

  • 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

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We look slightly down onto a crush of pedestrians, horse-drawn carriages, wagons, and streetcars enclosed by a row of densely spaced buildings and skyscrapers opposite us in this horizontal painting. The street in front of us is alive with action but the overall color palette is subdued with burgundy red, grays, and black, punctuated by bright spots of harvest yellow, shamrock green, apple red, and white. Most of the people wear long dark coats and black hats but a few in particular draw the eye. For instance, in a patch of sunlight in the lower right corner, three women wearing light blue, scarlet-red, or emerald-green dresses stand out from the crowd. The sunlight also highlights a white spot on the ground, probably snow, amid the crowd to our right. Beyond the band of people in the street close to us, more people fill in the space around carriages, wagons, and trolleys, and a large horse-drawn cart piled with large yellow blocks, perhaps hay, at the center of the composition. A little in the distance to our left, a few bare trees stand around a patch of white ground. Beyond that, in the top half of the painting, city buildings are blocked in with rectangles of muted red, gray, and tan. Shorter buildings, about six to ten stories high, cluster in front of the taller buildings that reach off the top edge of the painting. The band of skyscrapers is broken only by a gray patch of sky visible in a gap between the buildings to our right of center, along the top of the canvas. White smoke rises from a few chimneys and billboards and advertisements are painted onto the fronts of some of the buildings. The paint is loosely applied, so many of the people and objects are created with only a few swipes of the brush, which makes many of the details indistinct. The artist signed the work with pine-green paint near the lower left corner: “Geo Bellows.”

Educational Resource:  Exploring Identity through Modern Art

How do artists draw on memories and experiences to create art that reflects their identities? How does an artist’s connection to place spark inspiration? Through guided looking, sketching, and writing activities, students will consider how artists explore identity through their art.