help with finding a painting for a symbolism lesson

My knowledge of art is sorely lacking - I’m looking for a painting like “Self-Portrait With Vanitas Symbols” (Bailly) that could be used for a lesson on symbolism for 6-7th graders. Nothing too obscure or surreal (Magritte, for example, I think would be over their heads).

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. :slight_smile:

Umm.

Bump~

I’m interested in the answer!

How about other 17th-c still lifes by someone like Pieter Claesz.? Or the Arnolfini “wedding” portrait? Trying to think of something that’s not ridiculously religious. . .

(if you find something interesting and want some help unpacking it, ask, as that’s what I do, strangely enough)

How about that Bruegels, Landscape with the fall of Icarus?

A little mysterious, but How about The Ambassadors?

I’m not sure what exactly you’re looking for, but The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch has always been a favorite of mine. Might freak out those youngsters though.

“Still Life: An Allegory of the Vanities of Human Life” by Harmen Steenwyck is cool because it has a samurai sword. Kids still like that stuff, right? :slight_smile:

Nothing too crazy, but I was thinking of Dali’s Persistence of Memory.

I don’t know about too obscure or anything, but if I were to do such a study, I would use Dürer’s “Melancolia I”.

Though, on retrospect, I guess it’s not a painting…

I believe there’s supposed to be a lot of “simple” symbolism in American Gothic, but haven’t really read up on it. I mention it only because the kids would recognize the painting, and the experience of “re-seeing” something familiar often makes an impact.

What makes you think Magritte would be “over their heads”? Most of his works are simple, taken separately. But–is he using cut & dried symbolism or making suggestions? (You could drop a few Surreal hints.)

What’s the context of your class? Obviously not Art History, since you claim to be lacking knowledge in that field. Literature? Allegory? Christian Saints may be identified by their symbols. Heading toward the Renaissance, Wikipedia even supplies an explanation for Holbein’s The Ambassadors:

Then, there are the Symbolists. (You can find* a few* pictures without naked ladies!) Here’s some background. More Death

(Mid 20th Century, the de Menils settled in Houston, with the goal of bringing culture to Texas. Before they built their own museum, they sponsored mind-opening shows all over our city. Painters of the Mind’s Eye: Belgian Symbolists & Surrealists certainly opened my mind! One of my hippie friends yelled at me for blowing $5.00 on the catalog; I’ve still got it.)

**HNC **- are you looking to specifically discuss the Symbolist movement(wiki link - the section on Visual Art lists many examples) or more just the concept that in Art, many times what is painted is clearly meant to represent something more, like an idea?

I mean - why not go for a typical French National type painting, where La Liberte’ - France’s concept of itself as a Nation - is symbolized by a hot lady, preferably with at least one boob showing. Sorry for the crude line, and the kids may giggle at the boob, but this is a country’s narrative for itself and you can’t get more symbolistic than that. Heck, if you want to get boring you can use Uncle Sam representing the U.S., but he isn’t used in classic Art the way Ms. Liberty Boob is…

My $.02 - fwiw, my Mom teaches art appreciation to 5th graders in California and uses stuff like this…not exactly Korea, though, so perhaps different norms about boobage in class :wink:

Thomas Cole–the kids should be able to explain the series of symbols to you–

So **HazelNut **- did you get what you need?

Don’t you hate it as well when someone asks a question, gets plenty of replies, has been /is online , posts to several other threads , yet doesn’t even bother to return to their thread to respond any of the suggestions/questions?:mad:

Uh, sorry. Life happened, but I did remember this thread and a belated thanks to everyone who replied. (Also, I needed the answer that day and when I didn’t get any right away I think I just winged it. But the suggestions are still helpful for another lesson I’m planning at the moment. Also I forgot to subscribe to the thread.)

I was looking for a painting to use in a literature class - just to give them something different (a picture rather than a text). This is an ESL class so even though most of the kids speak English almost fluently, some of them don’t have the language that would be needed to discuss something too obscure. Also it’s only a 15 minute lesson, so I needed something with a lot of interesting stuff but nothing that would require too much explanation. Another thing is that some of my teachers are lazy/not very bright and if I gave them anything too out there that they’re not able to find on wiki or Sparknotes they would whine about it.

Also, I needed something that could be recognizable in black and white print. Yeah, I forgot to put all this info in the OP. :smack:

Anyway, thanks everyone for the suggestions. “An Allegory of the Vanities of Life” is perfect. Thanks hogarth!

This is not Magritte.