Week #4: Unconventional Portraits

Lesson Plan: Unconventional Portraits

Enduring Idea: Relationships connect us to other people and the world.

Rationale: Portraits are a way of connecting us to other people and the world. Portraits are and have been an important part of art history. They are a way of identifying someone and maybe give insight into a person’s persona. Students should understand how portraits have played an important part in history and why people make portraits. I want them to understand how the reason for making portraits have both changed and stayed the same in many ways.

Artists/Artworks: James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Pablo Picasso, Daniel Gordon, Abraham Cruzvillegas

Key Concepts:

• Portraits tell a story
• Portraits identify someone
• Portraits are of a person
• Portraits can change throughout history
• Portraits have always been a part of history
• Portraits are personal/private
• Portraits are public

Essential Questions:

1. What is a portrait?
2. Why are portraits a prevalent part of art history?
3. What do portraits tell us about the person that is in them?
4. Does a portrait need to look like the person? Why or why not?

Unit Objectives:

Standards:

• VA:Cr1.2.6a: Formulate an artistic investigation of personally relevant content for creating art.
• VA:Cr2.1.8a: Demonstrate willingness to experiment, innovate, and take risks to pursue ideas, forms, and meanings that emerge in the process of artmaking or designing
• VA:Pr5.1.8a: Collaboratively prepare and present selected theme-based artwork for display, and formulate exhibition narratives for the viewer.
• VA:Cn11.1.6a: Analyze how art reflects changing times, traditions, resources, and cultural uses.

Instructional Plan

Objectives: Help students understand and contextualize portraiture in art history and create an unconventional portrait.

Lesson: Talk about the history of portraiture. Have a short powerpoint presentation with examples of portraits throughout history. Some are realistic and others are more abstracted. We will discuss questions about what a portrait is and why artists paint them. How has the camera changed portraiture? Talk about selfies and the easiness of creating a picture of someone and how that has changed throughout the years. We will talk about artists throughout history who have used or changed portraiture (ex: Whistler, Picasso, Gordon, etc.). Watch this video about Daniel Gordon, a contemporary artist who uses collaged photographs to create new or alternate portraits:

And this video about Abraham Cruzvillegas and his autoconstrucciones:

After watching the video, we will break into small groups or work individually to brainstorm alternative ways to make a portrait of someone. Students are encouraged to think outside of the box and come up with unconventional ways of portraiture. After brainstorming, we will share some ideas with the class to get ideas for our project.

Activities: Students will need to create an unconventional portrait. This portrait can be of someone else or of the student themselves. They should feel free to borrow from history and create a new way of making a portrait. They are free to use whatever media they think is best; photography, collage, painting, drawing, sculpture, sound or video. They should think about portraits throughout history that we have discussed as a class and contextualize the portrait that they want to make through that history. In addition to the artmaking project, students will need to pick one artist to research from history or contemporary times that uses portraiture in their practice. Students will document their research through collecting images online of portraits that they think are interesting, successful or problematic. They will need to write their responses to these artworks/artist and submit it to the teacher. This will help them understand art criticism and aesthetics from art history.

Formative Assessment: Students will be assessed on their research and writing and they will also present their portrait to the class. We will have a class critique looking at each student’s portrait and each student will be required to write a title and or artist statement for their portrait.

Summative Assessment: We will have a student art show that students will help to curate. The theme of the show will be portraits.