Chagall-inspired drawing
Arts & Activities, Sept, 2006 by Jane Sutley

Anyone who has teenagers or teaches them knows that at times (okay, almost all the time), they're reluctant to share information and reveal their feelings about things they have experienced.

My goal here was for my teenaged art students to discover that drawings, paintings and sculptures are often created by artists to express their feelings and their reactions to a certain event or experience. Also, I wanted them to be able to learn firsthand that the components, the colors and composition all work together to communicate a visual manifestation of an artist's thoughts and emotions. Enter Surrealism a la Marc Chagall.

It's easy to understand why the early 20th-century art movement of Surrealism is so appealing to middle- and high-schoolers. Art of the Surrealists was strange, mysterious, dream-like imagery that, much like their contemporary Freud, explored the uncharted land of the subconscious. How could any teenager resist?

Let's face it. Who hasn't become engrossed in Salvador Dali's The Persistence of Memory, with its limp clocks so realistically rendered, hanging like wet laundry over branches in a desolate, nightmarish landscape? And, what about The Red Model, Rene Magritte's disturbing painting of boots that quietly morph into feet? Whenever I present these and other Surrealistic examples to my eighth-graders, they become riveted by the realistic images with their strange juxtapositions, levitations, object morphing, texture changes and scale alterations.

Sometimes, as in the case of Magritte's haunting Not to be Reproduced, they will even try to make sense of the painting and attempt to explain that it is actually possible to see a reflection of the back of your head when you're looking in a mirror. Needless to say, the spirited discussions quickly devolve into laughter and spontaneous admissions of "I give up! That dude is weird!"

So, the stage is set. The students know that their new project will be based on Surrealism. Giddy anticipation and the unbridled cacophony of students sharing their dreams and nightmares is soon replaced by the familiar sounds of teenage anxiety regarding their seemingly inflexible belief that they cannot draw anything realistically and their project, therefore, is inevitably "going to stink."

Their fears are quickly allayed by presenting them my sample of this artistic problem that relies not on the Surrealistic school of Dali and Magritte, but on the semi-abstract, romantic Surrealism of Marc Chagall.

As the students gaze at my simplistic, colorful composition, I tell them the story of the humiliation that had, long ago, planted the seed for my drawing. My cousin and I--both 8 years old at the time--danced together at a cousin's wedding. The crowd of beaming relatives and other guests couldn't help but stare at us and smile. To my 8-year-old eyes, however, it seemed as if everyone was pointing at us and laughing.

My 12" x 18" drawing directly and symbolically communicated both the event and my feelings surrounding it. In the lower right-hand corner is an almost childlike rendering of my cousin and me, our arms elongated somewhat as we tightly wrap them around each other, united in our persecution.

In the upper left-hand corner, a tremendous eye spotlights the two of us for all to see with a bright beacon of yellow light. Disembodied laughing mouths, floating eyeballs, strangely-colored oversized pointing hands, upside-down tables of wedding guests. My self-consciousness, my paranoia, my embarrassment. It was all there.

The next thing I unveil for the class is a poster-sized print of Marc Chagall's I and the Village (1911). For more intimate scrutiny, students are also given small color copies of the painting. Before dissecting and analyzing painting's imagery, the class is told that Chagall, as he did in I and the Village, often painted scenes of his childhood growing up in a small village in Russia. By using symbolic imagery, unexpected colors, unrealistic sizes and proportions, odd juxtapositions, and simplified-looking, gravity-defying drawings, Chagall dramatically expressed his feelings about the personal composition he created.

Students are thrilled when I next tell them that Chagall, despite his assimilation of Cubist devices in his works after 1910, is considered one of the most important artists of Surrealism. This is definitely the kind of Surrealism that eighth-graders can sink their teeth into.

We also discuss the concept of a focal point, and students easily recognize the large profiles of the green-faced man and the goat drawing the viewer into the heart of the painting.

More surprisingly, armed with only my abbreviated lecture on Chagall's life--growing up in a Russian shtetl (village), years as a student

in St. Petersburg where he was the unwitting victim of anti-Semitism, active participation in the Russian Revolution, his subsequent exodus from France during World War II as the Nazis were deporting Jews to death camps, and his fervent Jewish orthodox faith--students vie with one another to interpret the fanciful and enigmatic imagery of I and the Village, as they meticulously pore over every detail of the painting.

Moreover, students feel comfortable with Chagall's painting style. His bold and vivid use of colors to express emotions, along with his crudely drawn images in a topsy-turvy world, do not seem to shake the confidence of the eighth-graders as did the hyperrealism of Dali's Surrealistic world.

For students who don't consider themselves particularly adept at drawing, the unsophisticated, unbalanced, gravity-free requirements of the project enable them to draw what they feel without the burden of concern about realistic artistic devices.

The students are now hooked. In fact, when they are told next they have to write about three personal experiences that caused them to feel an almost palpably strong emotion, they get to work without hesitation. It doesn't matter whether the emotion is happiness or sadness, humiliation or elation. The experience they choose to portray must be replete with feeling. And it must, I remind them, focus on their reaction to the event.

Additionally, as the class works on their introspective musings, I tell them to make sure the experience they're writing about also evokes strong visual imagery. Vague, free-floating anxiety or teenage angst is not enough for this assignment.

When the students are finished writing, I meet with each of them to brainstorm about which idea of theirs will work the best as a piece of art. After the decision has been made, the students get to work on their sketches. Sheets of 9" x 12" drawing paper and/or 8 1/2" x 11" copier paper are used to work on layouts. Although students may choose whether to hold their paper horizontally or vertically, most choose the vertical orientation for more dramatic results.

As they'd been directed earlier, students must make sure there is some artistic device that draws the viewer into their picture. Overlapping, morphing and the connection and repetition of shapes and images are advised. As I amble up and down the aisles, I note that strong, overlapping, direct images with dramatic compositions come easily for students who have honestly revealed their raw emotions in writing. Students who have a harder time expressing their vulnerability go through numerous rough drafts.

The final compositions are created on sheets of 12" x 18" lightweight watercolor paper. All pencil lines are traced over with a thin black permanent marker, residual pencil lines are erased and the drawings are colored in with oil pastels or colored pencils. I encourage the use of the pastels because of their intensity and their ease of blending.

As the students work, I help them assess their choice of colors and make sure that, after an impromptu analysis of the emotional situation depicted, the chosen colors mirror the feelings of the artist. Students who use oil pastels are also afforded the opportunity to complete their compositions with a watercolor wash, which lends a certain harsh, crackly creepiness to their artworks. The students love it.

Although the students reveal very personal experiences in the raw, emotional vignettes they created, everyone was willing to write a short explanation of their work and insisted that it be attached to the front of their composition for everyone to see. The students truly "own" these unique pieces. The art is part of them, part of their personal "village." I have never seen them so proud and so eager to expose their inner selves. Teenagers. You never can tell.

Jane Sutley teaches art at Somerville (New Jersey) Middle School.

MATERIALS

* Scrap paper

* 12" x 18" white drawing paper (heavy stock)

* Pencils and erasers

* Watercolors, brushes, water

* Newspaper, paper towels

* Oil pastels and colored pencils

* Reproduction prints by Dali and Magritte

* Reproduction print and smaller copies of Chagall's, I and the Village
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* Teacher example of surrealistic drawing (if possible)

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Students will ...

* define the terms "Surrealism," "symbolic" and "focal point."

* become familiar with the life of Marc Chagall and recognize his visual style.

* create an artwork using personal subject matter and, by so doing, enhance their self-esteem.

* practice oil pastel and watercolor techniques.

* experiment with the use of color to communicate emotion.

COPYRIGHT 2006 Publishers' Development Corporation
COPYRIGHT 2006 Gale Group

 

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