Some selections from my Humanities students' projects

My Humanities students' final project is to imagine themselves as the curators of an exhibit called "500 Years of Western Art." Their space is divided into four rooms, each of which is devoted to a different era (this time around, Renaissance, Baroque, 19th century, 20th century) and, because space is tight, can contain only 4 paintings, 2 sculptures, two examples of architecture, and 45 minutes-1 hour of music appropriate to that era. I ask them to look for pieces that aren't necessarily famous as they are representative of that era, and to briefly write about why they chose them. I have two goals with this project: to get them out of the textbook and looking at images and connecting what they see with what we've been talking about in class; to see for myself some really cool or beautiful or thought-provoking images that I might not see otherwise. Teaching is not ALL altruistic.

I thought that I'd post here a few things from their projects that I'd not seen before that I thought were especially striking, along with what I thought was a pretty funny blooper.

John Sloan, Six O'Clock Winter (with apologies for the small image)


Francis Bacon, Self-Portrait


Kandinsky, Yellow, Red, Blue


and finally, Daniel in the Lions' Den,

painted, you'll be surprised to learn, by "Peter Paul (and Mary) Rubens."

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Painting, Teaching