I have already written about Wassily Kandinsky, a Russian, abstract artist. For a class I’m taking, I have been working on a geometry lesson using one of his paintings. I thought some of you might find it useful. In my opinion, any time you can incorporate art into math or reading—or any subject—it’s a good thing.
The purpose of the activity is for kids to learn to measure diameter, radius, and circumference of a circle. This activity is good for 3rd and 4th graders.
Materials Needed:
Kandinsky’s Circles in a Circle
Ruler
Pencil
Yarn
Focus first on the inside of the large, black circle.
Diameter is the measurement of the length across a circle. To find the diameter, use a ruler to measure straight across the circle. This line should cut the circle exactly in half.
Radius is the measurement from any point on the edge of the circle to the center. It would not be easy to guess the exact middle of the circle so, to find radius, divide the diameter in half. If you don’t yet know how to divide, try using a paper ruler that you can fold. Find the diameter and then fold the ruler so the diameter is split in two equal parts. The fold will tell you the radius.
Circumference is the measure around the circle. To find circumference, use a piece of yarn to find the length around the outside edge of the circle. Then, use your ruler to measure the yarn.
Repeat these steps until you are a master of measuring diameter, radius, and circumference.
A related project can be found here.
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Showing posts with label Kandinsky. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kandinsky. Show all posts
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Degenerate Art
In 1927, the Nazis created a society that would control art. They said they were trying to prevent it from becoming dirty or corrupted. The Nazis wanted to create a society in which everyone looked alike and had like ideas and opinions. What better way to control thinking than to control art?
Imagine if the government decided to destroy any record of any music that wasn’t classical. And then they did it. Suddenly you couldn’t listen to anything with lyrics. There would be no more rock or hip hop or country or anything else. These music styles have helped to shape our culture and our ideas and after awhile I believe that our thinking would begin to change in their absence. This is what the Nazis were trying to do.
Anyway, they took more than 20,000 works of art, including paintings, drawings, and sculpture, by about 200 artists and chose 650 or so for their exhibit of “Degenerate Art.” The exhibit traveled around Germany, making 12 stops in large cities, before many of the works of art were destroyed.
The exhibit was set up to poke fun at the displayed works of art. The walls were often covered with graffiti, and the artists’ names and titles of paintings were sloppily handwritten on note cards next to the works. Click here to watch a short video clip of people looking at paintings in the Degenerate Art exhibit.
Several artists about whom you have already read, were included in the Degenerate Art exhibit, including Pablo Picasso, Wassily Kandinsky, and Piet Mondrian.
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Imagine if the government decided to destroy any record of any music that wasn’t classical. And then they did it. Suddenly you couldn’t listen to anything with lyrics. There would be no more rock or hip hop or country or anything else. These music styles have helped to shape our culture and our ideas and after awhile I believe that our thinking would begin to change in their absence. This is what the Nazis were trying to do.
Anyway, they took more than 20,000 works of art, including paintings, drawings, and sculpture, by about 200 artists and chose 650 or so for their exhibit of “Degenerate Art.” The exhibit traveled around Germany, making 12 stops in large cities, before many of the works of art were destroyed.
The exhibit was set up to poke fun at the displayed works of art. The walls were often covered with graffiti, and the artists’ names and titles of paintings were sloppily handwritten on note cards next to the works. Click here to watch a short video clip of people looking at paintings in the Degenerate Art exhibit.
Several artists about whom you have already read, were included in the Degenerate Art exhibit, including Pablo Picasso, Wassily Kandinsky, and Piet Mondrian.
Return to main page.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Kandinsky was born in Moscow in 1866. He studied economics and law at the University of Moscow before becoming a professor.
He was 30 before he went to Munich, Germany and began to truly study art. He focused, at first, on creating sketches and studies of human bodies.
He settled in Germany after World War I where he taught art at the Bauhaus school and painted until the Nazis came into power. At that point (1933), he went back to France where he remained for the rest of his life.
On a somewhat-side note, the Nazis took some of Kandinsky’s paintings, displayed them in a collection of art they deemed inappropriate and unworthy, and then destroyed the paintings. The exhibition was called “Degenerate Art.” I will post more about this tomorrow.
Kandinsky’s earliest paintings were quite realistic. Then he moved into a style similar to that of the Impressionists before he began creating completely abstract paintings. Yesterday I used Monet’s Water Lilies to show this movement toward the abstract. Today, you can see that Kandinsky developed the same way except that Kandinsky became a truly abstract artist in the end. Check out Olga’s Kandinsky Gallery for pictures. All (or at least most) of his works are posted there in order. As you click through the pages, you can clearly see Kandinsky’s work become more and more abstract.
Kandinsky was especially interested in color, even as a child. Beginning in his earlier, more realistic paintings, Kandinsky used color to show emotion rather than to make objects look real. As he grew as an artist, Kandinsky became more concerned with the power of color in describing what he was feeling. He wanted to use color to make his viewers feel emotion, too.
Gradually, Kandinsky became more abstract. He began to paint objects as patches of color instead of painting perfect details such as facial features or individual leaves on trees. Remember that Kandinsky studied the human body and knew how to paint people well. He liked the abstract more than the realistic. As he grew as an artist, his figures became less realistic until the viewer could no longer identify known objects in his paintings.
Kandinsky was trying to create the same effect on a viewer of his paintings as a beautiful piece of music has on a listener. When you listen to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, for example, you don’t see snow or swirling fall leaves, or a muddy spring garden after a rain storm. You feel the seasons happening but you don’t actually see them. This is what Kandinsky was trying to do in his paintings.
Kandinsky’s ideas about art are possibly more important than even the paintings he created. He wrote three books about his ideas.
There are two Kandinsky projects posted at Art Projects for Kids. They both look pretty good but I’ve only tried this one, not this one. If you do either of the projects, please comment about your experience. I would love to hear about it and other readers would benefit from your comments as well. Happy creating!
EDITED TO ADD: Practice Geometry Using Kandinky's Art
Return to main page.
He was 30 before he went to Munich, Germany and began to truly study art. He focused, at first, on creating sketches and studies of human bodies.
He settled in Germany after World War I where he taught art at the Bauhaus school and painted until the Nazis came into power. At that point (1933), he went back to France where he remained for the rest of his life.
On a somewhat-side note, the Nazis took some of Kandinsky’s paintings, displayed them in a collection of art they deemed inappropriate and unworthy, and then destroyed the paintings. The exhibition was called “Degenerate Art.” I will post more about this tomorrow.
Kandinsky’s earliest paintings were quite realistic. Then he moved into a style similar to that of the Impressionists before he began creating completely abstract paintings. Yesterday I used Monet’s Water Lilies to show this movement toward the abstract. Today, you can see that Kandinsky developed the same way except that Kandinsky became a truly abstract artist in the end. Check out Olga’s Kandinsky Gallery for pictures. All (or at least most) of his works are posted there in order. As you click through the pages, you can clearly see Kandinsky’s work become more and more abstract.
Kandinsky was especially interested in color, even as a child. Beginning in his earlier, more realistic paintings, Kandinsky used color to show emotion rather than to make objects look real. As he grew as an artist, Kandinsky became more concerned with the power of color in describing what he was feeling. He wanted to use color to make his viewers feel emotion, too.
Gradually, Kandinsky became more abstract. He began to paint objects as patches of color instead of painting perfect details such as facial features or individual leaves on trees. Remember that Kandinsky studied the human body and knew how to paint people well. He liked the abstract more than the realistic. As he grew as an artist, his figures became less realistic until the viewer could no longer identify known objects in his paintings.
Kandinsky was trying to create the same effect on a viewer of his paintings as a beautiful piece of music has on a listener. When you listen to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, for example, you don’t see snow or swirling fall leaves, or a muddy spring garden after a rain storm. You feel the seasons happening but you don’t actually see them. This is what Kandinsky was trying to do in his paintings.
Kandinsky’s ideas about art are possibly more important than even the paintings he created. He wrote three books about his ideas.
There are two Kandinsky projects posted at Art Projects for Kids. They both look pretty good but I’ve only tried this one, not this one. If you do either of the projects, please comment about your experience. I would love to hear about it and other readers would benefit from your comments as well. Happy creating!
EDITED TO ADD: Practice Geometry Using Kandinky's Art
Return to main page.
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