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Kandinsky Sound Interpretation Painting

Submitted by: Shawn Dean
Title of Lesson: Visual Sound: Kandinsky
Grade level / Age: 1st Grade

Goals / Objectives:

A. Unit Objective

Students will learn how artists select and develop a verbal and visual vocabulary in order to describe, analyze, interpret and perceive abstract imagery, music and sound.

B. Unit Art Problem

Create an abstract painting using tempera cakes that visualizes the qualities and characteristics of the songs or sounds they hear played in the classroom.

Concepts:

Artists use their emotional responses and natural movement to music as a source for creating artwork.

Line, shape and color can be used to represent beat and rhythm.

A painting can be created with a deep personal intuition rather than the precision of one’s eye

Skills:

Students will illustrate shapes, lines and colors by interpreting the sound and music they hear into image.

Students will see the potential of color mixing.

Developing a verbal vocabulary useful for describing, analyzing and interpreting abstract imagery, music and sound.

Students will demonstrate understanding of dry and wet brush techniques.

Students will create an abstract composition based on the music they hear

Vocabulary:

Abstraction: Abstraction is understood to mean art that does not depict objects in the natural world, but instead uses color and form in a non-representational way.

Color/Value: In painting and drawing, the lightness or darkness of a color.

Visual Concepts: Examples: color, mark, line/shape, composition, texture, smooth/rough surface, transparency/opaque, thin/ thick, active/quiet, chaotic/organized, bright/dull, etc.

Mentioned Vocabulary:

Abstract Expressionism: A style and movement of non-representational painting where artists apply paint quickly and forcefully to express feeling and emotion. Developed in the 1940's and 1950's, the often-large works appear to be accidental but are very intentional.

Synesthesia: an associated sensation; especially: a subjective sensation or image of a sense other than the one being stimulated. The condition marked by the experience of such sensations. For example, the sensation of color when a sound is heard.

Materials Needed:

Prototypes

Exemplar presentation

Process Visuals

Checklist (Rubric)

Think About sheet: Sound relating to mark (Missing at the moment)

Tempera Cakes and Brushes

Black Tempera Paint

Large Drawing Paper

Water

Lesson Description:

Artists use their emotional responses and natural movement to music as a source for creating artwork.

Line and shape can be used to represent beat and rhythm.

A painting can be created with a deep personal intuition rather than the precision of one’s eye.

Students will illustrate shapes and lines by interpreting the sound and music they hear into image.

Developing a verbal vocabulary useful for describing, analyzing and interpreting abstract imagery, music and sound.

Students will demonstrate understanding of dry and wet brush techniques.

Students will create an abstract composition based on the music they hear

Developmental Rational:

This unit allows development and learning demonstrated in greater self-understanding and positive self-regard, more coherent personal narratives, awareness of one’s special qualities, attributes, and abilities, and stronger personal identity. Specifically fostered by this lesson:

A strengthened sense of self by identifying and developing the ability interpreting this music visually through color and mark.

The ability to use meditation, reflection and a strong intuitiveness as a way of achieving serenity and interpreting music.

Appreciation and knowledge of modern and post-modern abstract painting.

This unit encourages greater empathy with others, acceptance of others points of view, mutual respect, and a sense of community. This lesson also encourages and promotes the connection of music and art as one topic and fluid subject matter.

Small Pleasures by Wassily Kandinsky. (Click on image for full size)

Assessment: My Checklist
1. Students will demonstrate understanding of sound/mark relation.
2. Students should have a variation of black lines and shapes as well as mixed colors in their painting.
3. Students should have a clear understanding of abstraction vs. realism.
4. Students should demonstrate good craftsmanship.
5. Students should show effort and participation.

Resources:

Books:

Wassily Kandinsky: 1866-1944 a Revolution in Painting - Wassily Kandinsky, a Russian-born painter, became one of the founders of 20th-century abstract art, ultimately moving toward the geometric forms for which he is best known. Readers looking for a good introduction to the works of Kandinsky will be delighted with this volume.

Concerning the Spiritual in Art - All art students are advised to read this short masterpiece but I suspect that few young artists will take the time to read the book that best explains the concepts that lead to abstract painting in the modern era. This book will help the art teacher explain it better. Kandinsky was a pioneer of the abstract, who used Concerning the Spiritual in Art to argue for the transcendental importance of his vocation.

DVD: The Face of the Twentieth Century: Bauhaus - This documentary covers the Bauhaus, the founders (including Kandinsky) and their influence on the field's of architecture, industrial and graphic design. The unexpected gem in this documentary is the student's perspective of the larger historical significance of the school during the political unrest in Germany and the rise of the Third Reich under Adolph Hitler

Links:

Video:

1926 footage of Wassily Kandinsky at work - Kandinsky was at the Bauhaus at this time.

National Core Arts Standards and/or National Visual Arts Standards Covered: (See standards at ArtsEdge):
C2. Identify and compare ways in which selected artworks represent what people see, feel, know, and imagine.
a. Describe the subject matter of various works of art.
b. Use color, line, shape, and texture to represent ideas visually from observation, memory, and
imagination.