TEACHING WITH THE POWER OF OBJECTS Smithsonian Institution March/April 1996 LANDSCAPE PAINTING: Artists Who Love the Land Inside Lesson Plan Take-Home Page in English/Spanish Subjects Art Geography Language Arts U.S. History Grades 4–9 Publication of Art to Zoo is made possible through the generous support of the Pacific Mutual Foundation. CONTENTS Introduction page 3 Lesson Plan Step 1 page 5 Activity Page 1A page 7 Activity Page 1B page 8 Activity Page 1C page 9 Activity Page 1D page 10 Lesson Plan Step 2 page 11 Activity Page 2 page 12 Take-Home Page page 13 Take-Home Page in Spanish page 14 Resources page 15 Art to Zoo’s purpose is to help teachers bring into You may request a their classrooms the educational power of museums large-print or disk and other community resources. version of Art to Zoo Art to Zoo draws on the Smithsonian’s hundreds by writing to the of exhibitions and programs—from art, history, and address listed on the science to aviation and folklife—to create classroom- back cover or by faxing ready materials for grades four through nine. to (202) 357-2116. Each of the four annual issues explores a single topic through an interdisciplinary, multicultural approach. The Smithsonian invites teachers to duplicate Art to Zoo materials for educational use. LANDSCAPE PAINTING: Artists Who Love the Land How does an artist create a landscape? A landscape artist is a sort of magician who can create a whole world on a piece of flat canvas. This world, of course, is made of paint. Trees that seem thick with foliage are made with a few flicks of a paintbrush. Lakes that shine, waterfalls that splash, grasses that bend in the wind, and dark clouds that promise rain are all made of colors squeezed out of a paint tube. How amazing it is that small dabs and smears of color can create places for us to go in our imagination: a placid river winding around hills, a rocky shoreline where we can almost hear the crashing waves, an enormous canyon that seems to stretch miles deep into the distance. Air is an important part hill, he can leave some of colors of nature—the soil, can enter the painting and of any landscape as well, them out of his picture. If he the clouds, and the reflec- continue walking for miles. although we seldom give it thinks the trees are in the tions on water. He can study Landscape artists know much thought. An artist has wrong place, he can move the patterns of sunlight and that there are certain tech- to paint the air so skillfully them around. If a riverbank shadow that change with niques that work. Five “space that we seem to feel the heat looks too empty, he can every passing moment. On tricks” that students can try of the sun and the rush of the add a few rocks that aren’t the other hand, if he chooses out for themselves are wind. He or she has to make really there. to paint inside his studio, described in this Art to Zoo: us believe that it might take A landscape artist also he can work more slowly, hours for a bird to fly from has to decide what she rearrange the composition, 1. A winding path. one side of the picture frame wants us to see. If she is and adjust the colors and A path or river that winds to the other. All of this is painting a field, she has to shapes to his own way of through the landscape from hard to do. There are no decide whether she wants us seeing. Many artists find foreground to background paint tubes for sale labeled to see each blade of grass or both methods useful. They can make us believe that the “sunshine,” “frosty air,” whether she wants us to see make sketches outdoors and picture describes a deep “gentle breeze,” or “gloomy the field as a smear of color. then do the actual painting space. day.” An artist has to create She can paint her landscape back in their studio. 2. Changes in size. the wind, the sunshine, and so that we see the field from A tree that is close to us the mist with the paint at the above, as if we were looking appears much larger than a end of the brush. down from an airplane, or CREATING ILLUSIONS tree of the same size that is It is important to remem- from the ground, as if we far away. ber that a landscape artist is were lying flat on a picnic No matter where the land- not a camera that records blanket. scape artist chooses to set 3. Overlap. whatever happens to be in Before making any of up his easel, he will have to A boulder that is close to us front of the lens. He is not these decisions, the land- confront the central problem overlaps and partially hides a required to paint exactly scape artist must decide posed by all landscapes— much larger cliff behind it. what he sees. If he feels that whether to work outdoors creating the illusion of deep there are too many trees on a on the land or indoors in the space on a flat canvas. When studio. Working outdoors done well, the effect can be allows him to observe the spellbinding. We feel that we 4. Changes in clarity. seacoast of Maine. All four ABOUT THE ARTISTS A distant mountain range painters helped Americans appears more hazy and less see and love their land in a George Catlin Albert Bierstadt distinct than a mountain that time when photography was George Catlin was an east- Albert Bierstadt went to is closer. still in its infancy and travel erner who had been fascinat- California in 1859 with a films did not exist. Today ed with Native Americans land-surveying team after the 5. Diagonal composition. television floods us with since boyhood. When he gold rush had aroused the Land that moves away from images, and we can easily was thirty-four years old, he curiosity of the entire nation. us on the diagonal appears to travel by car, train, or plane decided that painting pictures At that time, easterners had move back into space. to whatever river, mountain, of Native Americans would to learn about the magnifi- canyon, or seacoast we wish be far more interesting than cent California wilderness George Catlin, Thomas to visit. Yet the silent paint- being a lawyer. So, in 1830 from small black-and-white Moran, Albert Bierstadt, and ings of these artists still he headed west. For six photographs brought home Winslow Homer were four speak to us of the majesty years, he moved from village by land surveyors. But American artists who used of our land. to village, using the Missouri Bierstadt was an artist these techniques well. Their Through the study of River as a means of travel. with a shrewd business ultimate purpose was not so several works of art, this He painted portraits of tribal sense. He knew that if much to impress us with issue of Art to Zoo explores chiefs and scenes of buffalo he produced impressive, their ability to fool our eyes the way that Americans felt hunts, dances, and other panoramic “great pictures” but to create pictures that about their growing nation Native American ceremonies. of California, easterners portray the great size and during the period of west- would pay money to splendor of the American ward expansion until the end Thomas Moran see them. landscape. of the nineteenth century. It Thomas Moran was an Catlin, Moran, and introduces students to some eastern artist who enjoyed Winslow Homer Bierstadt were artist/explor- basic principles of landscape going on geological In 1893, Winslow Homer left ers who were lured west by painting and has them prac- expeditions, although he his busy life in New York the raw power of unexplored tice geography skills to gain was not the rugged type. and built a studio in an old rivers, mountains, and appreciation for the physical He joined an expedition to stable on the high shore of canyons. They joined geolog- characteristics of different the remote headwaters of Prout’s Neck in Maine, only ical and surveying expedi- regions of the United the Yellowstone River in a few hundred feet from the tions into our nation’s then- States. All of the paintings Wyoming and, two years ocean. He loved walking on unexplored territories, mak- discussed in this issue later, went to the Grand the cliffs during fierce storms ing a visual record of the are in the collections of the Canyon, which he sketched to study the way the surf did land with their paintings. Smithsonian’s National many times from an overlook battle with the rocks. On Homer, on the other hand, Museum of American Art. called “Powell’s Plateau.” more pleasant days, he had preferred the East; his pas- When he returned to his little interest in the water. sion was the rocky Atlantic studio in the East, he When the ocean was calm, combined ideas from his he thought it looked like small sketches to produce “a duck pond.” enormous paintings. By then he had established a fine reputation as an artist, and his glorious watercolors of Yellowstone had encouraged Congress in 1872 to designate it as the nation’s first national park. 4 Art to Zoo Landscape Painting: Artists Who Love the Land March/April 1996 LESSON PLAN Step 1 VIEWS OF THE AMERICAN Procedure West.