Curated OER
Writing About Art: Subjective vs. Objective
Explore objective and subjective writing in this interdisciplinary lesson plan, which brings language arts and visual art together. Middle and high school learners examine the sculpture Head with Horns by Paul Gauguin. They then analyze...
Curated OER
Funky Illuminated Fairy Tales
Students create their own fairy tale. In this book making lesson, students write a fairy tale and turn it into a book. They use decorated initials and borders to make it look like an illuminated manuscript.
Curated OER
Looking and Learning in the Art Museum - Lesson 1
Explore the artistic elements in artworks with an original and reproduction instructional activity. As learners recognize the difference between an original and a reproduction, they discuss the artist elements used in the...
Curated OER
Exploring Photographs, Lesson 2—A Closer Look: Analysis in the Museum
Learners explore photographic works of art. In this visual arts lesson plan, students analyze selected photographs by Garcia, Ray, and Eggleston. Learners take their own photographs in the style of these photographers.
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If These Walls Could Talk
Students compare Neoclassical objects from the Getty collection to American civic architecture of the time. They discuss the moral and political ideas of the Enlightenment and articulate how these art forms influenced democratic thought...
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Looking At People in Portraits
This resource can be adapted for all grade levels! Intended for learners within easy access of the Getty Center, you could still set up a gallery in your own classroom to achieve similar results. Included is a writing prompt, a...
J. Paul Getty Trust
Writing the Artist's Statement
Learners read and write an artist's statement. In this artist's statement lesson, students read Dorothea Lange's artist statement before writing one of their own about their photography. They examine their own photography and use...
Curated OER
Flora and Fauna as Figures of Speech
Students view artwork in manuscript pages depicting insects, animals, plants, flowers, and ornate writing, such as those found in the Mira calligraphiae monumenta in the Getty Museum.
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Seeing the Invisible: Angels and Demons
Students search for angels and demons within the paintings in the Getty's medieval and Renaissance galleries. They examine the ways that artists made these invisible creatures visible.
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Spiritual Space
High schoolers explore Italian Renaissance artwork. In this visual arts lesson, students examine "Madonna, Saint Thomas Aquinas, and Saint Paul'" by Bernardo Daddi. High schoolers investigate the use of space, scale, and proportion in...
Curated OER
Writing About Art: Objective vs. Subjective
Students examine the sculpture "Head With Horns" by Paul Gauguin. In this perspectives lesson, students discuss what the terms "objective" and "subjective" means. Students are shown the sculpture and write their subjective and objective...
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Goddesses are Personifications Too!
Young scholars analyze the use of personification in classical Greek art and the Neoclassical period. In this Neoclassical art lesson, students discuss the cultural values reflected in classical and Neoclassical. Young...
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Shaping Ideas: Symbolism in Sculpture
Students critique the symbolic structures created by other students. In this visual arts lesson plan, students display completed sculptures and drawings. Students analyze the symbolic elements in each others work, relate their art to...
Curated OER
Read All About It! California History of the 30s and 40s
Explore the Great Depression! Discover the challenges people experienced during the time period. Learners investigate photographs from the Dust Bowl and WWII era and create a story line about the photographs, writing a newspaper article...
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Whose Afraid of Contemporary Art?
Have your class create original modern art sculptures. Learners analyze and discuss "The Profile," a sculpture by Martin Puryear. They work in teams to develop a proposal for a large outdoor sculpture in the community. Presentations...
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About Life: The Photographs of Dorothea Lange Going to the Promised Land
To better understand the migrant experience during the Great Depression, pupils analyze two primary resources: photographs by Dorothea Lange and a U.S. Map that shows the Dust Bowl. They compare and contrast Lange's images to Steinbeck's...
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Once upon a Time in the 1800's
Young readers examine the details in an 1821 painting by Jacques-Louis David depicting two sisters who are exiled princesses. They read a tale about the Brothers Grimm, who were writing fairy tales during the same time period that these...
J. Paul Getty Trust
Still-Life Painting: Arranging Nature—Lesson 1
Art learners examine still-life arrangement images and respond to a series of prompts. In a whole-class discussion, pupils list elements and qualities that still-life paintings can have. After instructors create an arrangement and model...
J. Paul Getty Trust
Shaping Ideas: Symbolism in Sculpture—Lesson 2
Young artists create a series of sketches of ideas for a sculpture, and using the criteria develop in the previous class, critique their sketches. They then choose one of their ideas and create their work of art.
J. Paul Getty Trust
Tag: Whose Values
Get young people thinking about their lives and current topics of social justice, advocacy, gender, race, and identity. After examining several works by Barbara Kruger, participants select a tag with one of the questions printed on it,...
Curated OER
Ambitious Women Artists at Work
Examine the works of Luisa Roldan and Elisabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun. Learners view various pieces of art from each of the artists and read about their lives. They discuss the information and construct a Venn diagram, comparing the two...
J. Paul Getty Trust
Ambitious Women Artists at Work
Ambition is the keyword of a lesson that focuses on the contributions made by famous female artists. Specifically looking at European artists, Luisa Roldan and Elisabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun, scholars examine a piece of their work then...
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Imagining China through Words
When Europeans first came back with tales of China, they provided vivid written accounts and minimal visual imput. This resulted in art rendered mostly from descriptive language. Learners explore this phenomena by listening to...
J. Paul Getty Trust
Expressing Emotions through Art Lesson 3—Everybody Works Together
See how art can communicate the idea of working together with your class. They will view art and describe space, color, shape, and lines in art. Then they will overlap in their art to show a sense of space. In the end, they will be able...