Teachers Pack Tracing the Century: Drawing as a Catalyst for Change 16 November 2012 – 20 January 2013 Using this Pack The pack is designed to support For further details about visiting teachers, educators and group Tate Liverpool with a group see leaders in planning a visit to the http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/ exhibition with a collection of ideas, teachers/school-visits-tate-liverpool workshops and points for discussion. Email [email protected] The activities are suitable for all Call +44 (0) 151 702 7400 ages and can be adapted to your needs before, during and after your A special school group price for visit. The pack can be downloaded exhibitions is available if you and printed, or projected in the book and pay at least two weeks classroom as a word document or in advance. copied into Powerpoint. Please note that this exhibition does contain a few works which you may consider unsuitable for younger groups. Our Visitor Experience Team can provide more information when booking and all teachers are welcome to book a free research viewing of the exhibition in advance of their visit. 2 Teachers Pack — Tracing the Century Introduction What do we mean by ‘drawing’? Programmed in parallel with Tracing Is it a means of conveying an idea the Century, a new commission by visually, such as a diagram, map or Matt Saunders in the Wolfson Gallery plan? Is it a way of recording what we will look at new drawing practices. see or expressing how we feel? Do we have to think about what Tracing the Century has at its heart we are sketching or can we doodle artworks based on the human body subconsciously? Does it involve and the inner self, opening up the making lines or can we use blotches? conversation between figuration Do we have to use pencil and paper and abstraction that characterised or can we experiment with a wide art in the twentieth century. Rather range of materials and techniques? than approaching abstraction and figuration separately, the exhibition Tracing the Century highlights will integrate these genres to explore drawing’s fundamental role as a the continuous slippage between the catalyst and vehicle for change in two. The exhibition will move from modern and contemporary art. the preliminary sketch to painting, The exhibition includes around one sculpture, photography and film, hundred artworks from the Tate acknowledging the broader role Collection together with key loans drawing played within modernism. by artists such as Sara Barker, Leon Golub, Jasper Johns, Julie Mehretu, Matthew Monahan, Richard Tuttle and Hannah Wilke. 3 Teachers Pack — Tracing the Century Introduction Drawing’s ability to transcend a fixed Important works on paper by set of materials and conventions Raymond Pettibon, and a major has ensured the medium’s vitality installation of twenty-six drawings and power to stimulate change. A by Fernando Bryce will be on number of works in the exhibition, display. A trilogy of animated films such as Anthony McCall’s Line by William Kentridge, rarely seen Describing a Cone 1973, serve to together, will also be exhibited. erode the conventional definition of Accompanying Tracing the Century drawing as a static line on a will be a new commission by Matt two-dimensional plane. Saunders entitled Century Rolls. Exhibited as silver gelatin prints, In McCall’s work, visitors can explore Saunders’ enigmatic works on paper the projected line by moving around are created by projecting light it, interacting with it and moving through a drawing or painting to within the cone of light created. expose a sheet of photosensitive paper. Alongside these prints will The exhibition features a number be a new animated film made from of works presented at Tate for the a huge number of ink on mylar first time since acquisition, such as drawings, edited into hypnotic William Orpen’s meticulously detailed moving images. Saunders’ inventive representations of the human figure, use of materials, which unites Anatomical Studies 1906, used by drawing, photography and film, students to study anatomy during offers another way to engage with the early part of the century. the themes within Tracing the Century. 4 Teachers Pack — Tracing the Century Contents CHALK ON PAPER Sir William Orpen Anatomical Study, Male Torso c1906 6 WATERCOLOUR ON PAPER Paul Cézanne Montagne Sainte-Victoire 1905–6 9 STEEL Julio González Maternity 1934 12 GARPHITE, INK GOUACHE AND WAX ON PAPER Henry Moore Pink and Green Sleepers 1941 14 OIL PAINT ON CANVAS Alberto Giacometti Caroline 1965 17 FILM PROJECTION Anthony McCall Line Describing a Cone 1973 19 5 Teachers Pack — Tracing the Century CHALK ON PAPER Sir William Orpen Anatomical Study, Male Torso c1906 Tate, 2012 6 Teachers Pack — Tracing the Century Sir William Orpen was one of the In order to depict the human form For example, his Anatomical most popular portrait painters of with conviction, art students were Study, Man Hanging 1906 drawing the early 20th century. He was also a expected to gain an understanding demonstrates the muscle contortion gifted and inspiring teacher at the of its physiognomy: what lies of a crucifixion in art, and the pose Dublin Metropolitan School of Art beneath the skin; how the muscles of Anatomical Study, Turning Man where he produced a series of are stretched and contorted 1906 (after Michelangelo) is copied twenty anatomical drawings as during movement. from the Italian master’s drawings visual aids for his classes. for the unfinished fresco The Battle Before the widespread use of of Cascina 1504. Anatomical Study, Anatomical study has been a modern visual aids such as slides, Male Torso c1906 resembles the fundamental part of an artist’s these drawings were Orpen’s only classical Belvedere torso that education since the fifteenth support materials for his lessons, Michelangelo used as a source for century. Artists such as Leonardo, but they are also works of art in many of his male nudes in the Sistine Michelangelo and Durer are believed their own right – not simply medical Chapel frescoes. to have dissected corpses in the diagrams. His figures are full of course of their investigations and vitality and their fluid outlines often Orpen’s chief source of reference for the connection between fine art and echo recognisable poses from these drawings, however, was Gray’s medical science existed in academic art history. Anatomy which he stated was ‘the institutions well into the twentieth only book worth working from.’ The century. numbers on the work correspond to the various parts of the body that the students were required to identify. 7 Teachers Pack — Tracing the Century Activities MAKE your own copies of medical MAKE an anatomical model or drawings or scientific diagrams using assemblage using household chalk or crayons on coloured paper. materials such as macaroni, embroidery threads, buttons, string, STUDY the anatomical drawings of wire, plasticine etc. Leonardo, Ingres, Gericault, Stubbs etc and discuss the importance of FIND other examples of figure these studies to the artist’s practice. drawing in the exhibition. Discuss whether you think the artists drew VISIT your local museum and make directly from a real person or from sketches from classical sculptures, imagination. Give reasons for your wax anatomical models and answers. What materials has the drawings. Alternatively, artist used? Why do you think he or find examples of medical she chose that material? How does it schools’ teaching aids such as make you feel? Joseph Towne’s wax models at www.wellcomecollection.org.uk FURTHER RESOURCES IDENTIFY the parts of the body that correspond to the numbers on http://www.kbteachers.com/human- Orpen’s drawing. You could turn this anatomy/ into a research project or quiz! http://www.examiner.com/article/ anatomy-activities-for-kids-and- teens 8 Teachers Pack — Tracing the Century WATERCOLOUR ON PAPER Paul Cézanne Montagne Sainte-Victoire 1905-6 Tate, 2012 9 Teachers Pack — Tracing the Century The Montagne Sainte-Victoire near Emile Bernard visited Cézanne in the artist’s home in Aix en Provence 1904 and noted his unique approach became his favourite subject from to sketching in watercolours: the late 1880s until his death. He ‘His method was strange, entirely returned, day after day to sketch different from the usual practices it from different viewpoints and in and of an extreme complexity. He changing light conditions and this began with the shadows and with watercolour was painted from a touch, which he covered with a Les Lauves, a steep slope above second more extensive touch, then this studio. with a third, until all these tints, Cézanne exhibited with the forming a mesh, both coloured and Impressionists, 1874-7, but he modelled the object.’ sought to develop ‘something solid and enduring’ from Impressionism. In his landscapes, he abandoned traditional fixed-point perspective in an attempt to capture the natural movement of the eye as it roams across the vista. The viewer is led across the surface of his image through passages of carefully constructed brush-marks and subtle tones. 10 Teachers Pack — Tracing the Century Activities MAKE a landscape sketch in FURTHER RESOURCES watercolours using Cézanne’s Matthew Simms, Cézanne’s technique of building up layers of Watercolours:Between Drawing and delicate marks – no pencils allowed! Painting, Yale University Press 2008 You could capture the view from a window or work from a photograph. Paul Smith, Interpreting Cézanne, Tate Publishing 1996 FIND OUT more about Paul Cézanne. Compare his landscapes to those of http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/ Claude, Constable, Turner, Van Gogh, auth/cezanne/st-victoire/ Matisse. How do they differ? How do they make you feel? http://www.theartstory.org/artist- cezanne-paul.htm CREATE your own version of Mont Sainte-Victoire using different materials.