Peter+Valeiras

__**DESCRIPTION:**__ My project will be on landscapes, both how they form and what they look like. The focus will be on those landscapes of New York State and specifically in our immediate area. The main topics to cover will be: mountains, valleys, plains, plateaus and river systems.

I really want to incorporate other disciplines into this project so that the students who are not as interested in science can still have interest and more of a motivation to actually complete the assignment. To do this I figured that Art would be a good aspect, especially landscape paintings that can be found from almost all time periods in the MET.

There will be two trips that my students will take:
 * Metropolitan Museum of Art - Here students will be looking at the different types of landscapes that painters focus on. Students will have a worksheet to complete in which they will need to find paintings that have different types of landscapes and requires each to describe what that type of landscape looks like in words or through a sketch. They will have to find different types of river systems and make sure that they know the difference between the different landforms. I will go through the museum first to make sure that students are in a general area and can find each of the types of landscapes that I assign. There will also be a project associated with this that will have students pick one painting and write about how the artist depicted the landscape and how that specific landscape probably formed. This way students will be reinforcing what they have learned in class through a different medium. (I might try to contact the MET to see if they have any tours of landscape paintings that might be helpful for my students, or else I will derive a tour of my own that the students will go on to learn more about the paintings and their subjects.)
 * New-York Historical Society - Here students will be looking at different landscape painters as well, and focusing on those that are coming from the Hudson River School of painting. This group is specific to New York State and the general North East region of the country, giving the students something more local to focus on. In addition, these paintings mainly display the landscapes of New York State which are required for the Regents, so students will learn how the state itself formed and what types of landscapes and topography is around them.

In preparation for these two trips to Art Museums, I am attempting to have either an Art History Professor or Graduate Student from Columbia University come to speak with my students about the importance of Art over time. This will include how it tells us about the history of civilizations and what land and buildings used to look like before they get destroyed or worn away by the elements and humans. I think that this lesson will give them context for why we use art to discover more about our world and the many civilizations that have inhabited it, and will be a direct tie between science and history. I will talk to the different History teachers to see what they are teaching and have an additional lesson to combine art, history and science into one, showing the interdisciplinary nature of what we are learning in class right now.

In addition, these lessons will help the students look at the works of art later on with a critical eye, developing their understanding of what was painted and why they decided to focus on that scene.

Day 1 –

 * Introduction to Hudson River School
 * The history of the movement, including why it began and who the founder was.
 * How nature is depicted through art
 * The symbolism given through nature
 * What the artists were looking for
 * The major artists involved in the movement.
 * Homework: Read section from "The Anatomy of Nature" on geology in the Hudson River School. We will discuss the selection the next day in class.

Day 2 –

 * Trip to Columbia University
 * Undergraduate Student Portion (2 Art History Majors, 1 Engineering Major, 1 Political Science Major):
 * How does art relate to other subjects
 * College tour + Life at College
 * Graduate Student or Professor (I have a graduate student who is willing to do this section, but I think that it would be more interesting and beneficial if I can have a tenured professor give the talk to my students)
 * Hudson River School – Why Nature in Art?
 * Connections between art and the formation of land, and what artists were looking for when they painted the land.
 * Including some history of art and how it shows us more about the cultures that created it and how art can be used to determine more about older civilizations and periods that we may not have direct proof of or writings from.
 * Examples discussed with graduate student:
 * Aztec Art – Calendar Stone and Ball Courts
 * Greek Art – The Temples of the Gods
 * Egyptians – Pyramids

Days 3/4/5 –
*Found at the MET
 * Introduction to Landscapes – Looking at the paintings, students will attempt to understand how a landscape was formed.
 * Students will look at paintings first, then images, working in groups to determine what type of landscape it is and how it may have formed.
 * Plains
 * Frederic Church, //The Heart of the Andes// (1859)*
 * Frederic Church, //Cotopaxi// (1862)
 * John Kensett, //The White Mountains from the Valley of Conway// (1851)
 * Plateaus (regular and dissected)
 * Thomas Moran, //The Chasm of the Colorado// (1873 – 74)
 * Mountains
 * Thomas Cole, //Corway [Chocorua] Peak, New Hampshire// (1844)
 * Asher Durand, //Landscape Scene from “Thanatopsis”// (1850)*
 * Frederic Church, //The Heart of the Andes// (1859)*
 * Frederic Church, //Cotopaxi// (1862) [Volcano]
 * John Kensett, //Lake George// (1869)*
 * Valleys
 * Thomas Cole, //A View of the Mountain Pass Called the Notch of the White Mountains (Crawford Notch)// (1839)
 * Glacier de Viesch. //Plate 9 from Louis Agassiz, Étude sur les Glaciers// (1840)
 * Thomas Moran, //The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone// (1872)
 * Thomas Moran, //The Mountain of the Holy Cross// (1875)
 * Waterfalls
 * Thomas Cole, //The Falls of Kaaterskill// (1826)
 * Frederic Church, //The Heart of the Andes// (1859)*
 * Frederic Church, //Cotopaxi// (1862)
 * John Kensett, //The Fawn’s Leap// (1859)
 * Found at the NYHS

Day 6 –

 * ====Clips from “[|How the Earth Was Made: New York]” with Paintings of New York State ([|Hulu Link])====
 * ====These will be mixed together to demonstrate how the artists showed the history of the landscape through their artwork====
 * ====Include details or rocks (weathering, erosion and deposition) and water that show evidence====
 * ====Each clip will relate to a painting and students will describe how the landform was made.====
 * ====They will then use their Reference Tables to find where in New York State it is and create a map of different landscapes in NYS.====
 * [|"How the Earth Was Made: New York" Worksheet]

Days 7/8 –

 * ====[|Landscapes of NYS Lab]====
 * ====Students will use maps and the ESRT to determine the elevations of different parts of New York State and to determine the types of landscapes within each region.====

Day 9 –

 * ====The Metropolitan Museum of Art====
 * ====The history of the museum====
 * ====What it is meant to help us with====
 * ====Overview of what we will be seeing in the museum:====
 * ====American Wing – Hudson River School Artists====
 * ====Impressionists and Modern Art – Landscapes in a modern form.====
 * ====How to act when in the museum====
 * ====Students will then create their own pamphlets about how to act in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with directions to the various locations that we will be going.====

Day 10 –

 * ====Metropolitan Museum of Art====
 * ====Walk through to find paintings that relate to landscapes====
 * ====Lecture as we move through the museum ([|TOUR OF THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART – LANDSCAPES])====
 * ====How to look at art in a museum.====
 * ====What to look for.====
 * ====What the plaque next to the painting can tell you.====
 * ====Giving information about each of the paintings we see.====
 * ====Students will be identifying the types of landscapes in the paintings and how they can tell what they are.====
 * ====Will then move to Impressionists/Modern Art to show students a different view on landscapes and how to paint them.====
 * ====Worksheet to do after lecture is over====
 * ====This worksheet will be about different landscapes in paintings.====
 * ====Students will go as groups to the different sections of the museum to look at the paintings and determine which types of landscapes are shown.====
 * ====On the worksheet they will also need to use details from the plaques to fill in the worksheets with additional information.====
 * [|Metropolitan Museum of Art Worksheet]
 * [|Locations in Metropolitan Museum of Art]

Day 11 –

 * ====Introduction of Final Project on Landscapes====
 * ====Choice of project====
 * ====Going to choose a painting or to get inspiration for your own.====
 * ====New-York Historical Society====
 * ====What is it?====
 * ====What are we going to be doing there?====
 * ====Looking at a few more Hudson River School Artists====
 * ====Looking at more landscapes of New York State so as to get a better idea about how our own state formed millions of years ago.====
 * ====How will this help us with our final project?====
 * ====Review how to act in a museum.====

Day 12 –

 * ====New-York Historical Society ([|TOUR OF THE NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY])====
 * ====Visit several paintings by Hudson River School Artists====
 * Specifically look at Thomas Cole, //The Course of Empire// (1833 - 1836)
 * ====Students will then go off in groups to do a similar scavenger hunt, but will be given specific paintings to visit.====
 * ====Each will then choose one of those paintings to do their project on.====
 * ====They will have another 30 minutes to answer specific questions about their own painting on a worksheet, so that they have some information about the painting.====
 * ====I will already have images for them, and will give them online images as resources, but they can take photographs of their landscape if they want additional images.====
 * [|New York Historical Society Worksheet]

Day 13/14 –

 * ====Work on Final Project in Class====
 * ====Conference with students about the work that they have done so far and the painting that they chose.====
 * ====Bring in posters and materials for students to use for their presentations.====
 * ====Give a sample presentation of my own as to what the students should have on their posters.====

Day 15/16 –

 * ====Practice Presentations in Class====
 * Students will each have 3 minutes to give their presentation as practice for the rest of the class to see.

Day 17 –

 * ====Presentation Fair====
 * ====Students will set up their projects in the gym by region of New York State.====
 * ====Each student will then have an opportunity to present those who come by their station.====
 * ====Students will not all be manning their stations at the same time, but will be rotating so as to let them see all of the other presentations as well and learn about the other landscapes of New York.====
 * ====Lastly, students will have a worksheet to fill out that is based on the projects and poses specific questions about each region of New York and how it formed to make sure that students visit at least one project from each group.====

TEXT:
I will also be using "The Anatomy of Nature" by Rebecca Bedell to augment the classes. This book goes through many of the Hudson River Artists with images to discuss the nature behind the painting. This shows a development in the influence of nature in art and also shows how many artists were beginning to take notice of their surroundings. In addition, the book goes into the actual geology behind the works of art and what it meant for the artist to paint the landscape and the history of that terrain. This will help my students in displaying paintings of the North Eastern United States, where they live, and developing a sense of the connection between different disciplines.

FINAL PROJECT:
The Final Project will consist of two assignments where each student will choose one to do.
 * 1) Choose one of the following paintings that is on display in the New-York Historical Society to describe the landscape of.
 * 2) Choose a landscape of New York State to make your own drawing/painting of.

The assignment sheet that will be handed out to students is posted below: [|Art Landscapes Final Project]