FERTILE GROUND DRAWS UPON A RICH HISTORY OF MURAL MAKING ACROSS ​ TIME AND PLACE. In this section: Goals and Outcomes Key Questions Lesson Narrative Group Activity: Developing Mural Theme Assessment Strategies Goals and Outcomes: Students will become familiar with murals through time and place. Students will be able to describe how murals express community concerns. Students will understand the influence of different types of patronage on the creation of murals. Students will recognize factors that affect the preservation and permanence of murals. Students will be able to plan a mural that addresses a community interest. Key Questions: Why have people throughout history made murals? How can murals tell us about the stories of peoples’ lives in their communities? In what different ways have murals been funded? How has the content of murals been affected by different kinds of patrons? What different factors contribute to the preservation and permanence of murals? What content would you like to include in a mural for your community? Lesson Narratives: Note to Teacher: The inquiry approach used in this lesson is designed to allow students to ​ carefully observe works of art, make connections to their own prior knowledge, and respond to questions before they have been given specific information by the teacher. The lesson narrative below is structured in a sequence to lead teachers and students through this process. The information given below discussion questions is meant to be introduced by the teacher after the students have had a chance to observe the images and discuss the questions themselves. It is always a good idea for the teacher to ask the students to refer back to the work of art to support their ideas. Teacher Preparation: – Preview the websites given in the lesson. For most sites there is explanatory information about the work and the culture. This lesson concentrates mainly on secular painted murals that make good comparisons with Meg Saligman’s Fertile Ground. There are, however, strong traditions all over the world of murals ​ ​ made in religious contexts and in other media (materials). Teachers might be interested in exploring: Buddhist Dunhuang cave paintings in China Catacomb paintings in Rome Byzantine paintings and mosaics in churches around Greece and Eastern Europe Sistine Chapel in Rome and other Renaissance and Baroque frescoes in Italy Assyrian painted reliefs in Iraq Islamic tile decoration in Mosques in Spain and the Middle East Medieval stained glass windows in churches in Europe Marc Chagall and Henri Matisse modern stained glass windows Community Concerns Murals have been made all over the world in all different time periods. Although the subject matter of the murals vary, people have always made murals about things that are important to them and their communities. Look at the following murals: Lascaux cave paintings Full virtual tour of the cave. ​ Raphael, School of Athens ​ Diego Rivera, Detroit Industry ​ Meg Saligman Journey ​ What do you see in the paintings? Based on what you see, what do you think might have been important to the communities for which the murals were made? Can you guess where and when each of these paintings might have been made? The Lascaux cave paintings were made in a cave in southern France about 15,000 BCE making them some of the earliest art we know about . These paintings of horses and bulls were made deep in caves in areas that were probably used for community ceremonies rather than for living spaces. The animals pictured were hunted for food so the artists were representing animals that would have been vital for the people’s survival. Raphael was commissioned by Pope Julius II to paint the School of Athens in 1510-1511 in the ​ ​ Vatican in Rome, Italy, during an historical period called the Renaissance. It was painted in the study housing the Pope’s library where he signed important documents. Most of the figures in the mural represent actual philosophers and scholars from ancient Greek times, such as Plato, Aristotle and Euclid. Scholars and painters during the Renaissance were inspired by the great period of learning and culture that had taken place almost 2000 years before in Greece. In order to make the connection between this period of learning in ancient times and his own time, Raphael uses portraits of some of the important Renaissance artists that he knew, such as Michelangelo and Leonardo. For example, Plato, the older figure with the white beard in the center is given the features of Leonardo da Vinci, a famous painter of the Renaissance that Raphael knew and admired. Through his painting in the Pope’s library, Raphael expresses the importance of learning and the arts to his community. Diego Rivera, an artist from Mexico, painted Detroit Industry, in the Detroit Institute of Arts in ​ ​ Michigan in 1932-33. These murals depict workers in one of the Ford Motor Company’s plants in Michigan. The whole group of 27 panels focuses on the automobile workers but also includes references to new developments in other areas of science and technology. Through these murals Rivera expresses the significance of the worker in the growing automobile industry in Detroit. Meg Saligman’s Journey was painted in 1998 on the exterior wall of the Children’s Crisis ​ ​ Treatment Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It symbolically depicts the healing journey of the children who are treated at the Center. Through these murals Saligman expresses the importance of the youth of the community. How does Meg Saligman represent the interests and concerns of the Omaha community in Fertile Ground? ​ ​ Meg Saligman says that the content of her mural comes from the community. She interviewed many people in Omaha and asked, “What is important to you about Omaha?” What would you answer if she asked you this question? Meg Saligman said that in her initial impressions of Omaha she saw a depth of roots in both nature and community. Where do you see roots in the mural? What in the mural shows that the natural world is important to our community? How can a community have roots? The mural is titled Fertile Ground. This is a metaphor that compares a thriving community to ​ ​ healthy plants that send deep roots down into fertile soil. How does Meg Saligman show that the Omaha community is thriving in the mural? Sometimes artists have made murals to help a community overcome problems and thrive. Between 1974 and 1983 Judy Baca worked with members of the community to create a 2,754 ft. mural along a flood control channel in Los Angeles. The original plain concrete wall was unattractive and the project, along with a walkway and park, was meant to create a beautiful and useful space for the community. The subject matter celebrates the history of California through the eyes of women, Native Americans, and immigrants from all over the world who settled there. The imagery, which empowers people whose history was rarely studied, is divided into decades from the 1910s to the 1950s with plans for a continuation in the future. Although the official name of the mural is The History of California it is now almost always called the Great ​ ​ ​ Wall of Los Angeles (a reference to the Great Wall of China, begun in the 3rd c. BCE). Each year ​ of the project young people between the ages of 14 and 21 were recruited to help plan and paint the mural. The project provided jobs to young people from low-income families and from a diversity of backgrounds and taught them valuable life skills. Look at Judy Baca’s Great Wall of Los Angeles ​ ​ This website has numerous pages which provide information, video, and images of the different parts of the wall. Meg Saligman has also been involved in projects with youth that were meant to address urban problems. In 1989 she painted her first mural with the Philadelphia Anti Graffiti Network that is dedicated to stopping graffiti vandalism. One of the ways they do this is to paint murals that cover graffiti and provide imagery that community members can enjoy, be proud of and take care of. What problems exist in your community that you might be able to address in a mural? Patronage Because murals are images on walls, they are usually public art which convey the concerns of a certain community to a larger public. How do these large-scale art works come to be? A person or group of people or organizations usually select an artist, pay for materials and labor, help determine the location and subject matter of the mural, and guide the entire project. The people who do this are usually called patrons. There are many different kinds of patronage including domestic (family), elite (ruling class), government, and collaborative (partnerships). Look at the following works of art: Blackfoot Native American painted tipis Roman villa at Boscoreale African Ndebele House Painting Blackfoot Native American painted tipis Painted tipis were common among Plains Indian tribes, but painting a tipi is not simply a matter of creating your own design, or copying someone else’s on your tipi. In the traditional Blackfeet way of doing things, tipi designs are owned by individuals and families, and are passed on through family lines or through transfer of the rights to the design to another person. A person usually received the original design through having a dream or a spiritual vision, in which the dreamer is given certain instructions in order to carry out the design in the proper manner. Source: http://art.mt.gov/folklife/hearthand/tipi.asp Roman villa at Boscoreale This wall painting is a fresco in a cubiculum (bedroom) from the Villa of P.