Presentation Van Gogh: the harvest

• Kunst
• Lower Secondary (Key Stage 3)

Van Gogh Museum

For those of you who aren’t yet familiar with the Van Gogh Museum: it’s a museum dedicated to the artist Vincent van Gogh, located in Amsterdam in The Netherlands and it houses the largest collection of works and letters by Vincent van Gogh worldwide.

‘I think there would be children who became painters if only they saw good things’

This is a quote by Vincent van Gogh in a letter to his brother Theo, dating on or about Friday, 20 September 1889. It shows that the artist himself already saw the importance of bringing children into contact with works of art. 

Missie

The Van Gogh Museum inspires a diverse audience with the life and work of Vincent van Gogh and his time. 

Mission

We think it is a lovely quote to accompany the mission of the museum, which is inspiring a diverse audience with the life and work of Vincent van Gogh and his time.

Museum

Outreach

Online

Learnings Van Gogh goes to school integrated in this programm.

Program objectives

• Empower childrens self confidence and creativity.
• Pupils get to know the work and live of Vincent van Gogh.
• 21st century skills.

Training objectives

• Sharing knowledge of the lessons
• Teach the teacher
• Get to know LessonUp
• Experience what your students experience

Schedule

• Lesson 1 (This is Vincent)
• Lesson 2 & 3 (Colours and feelings)
• Pause
• Lesson 4 (Leporello)
• Lesson 5 (The exhibition)
• Questions

- 21st century skills

Critical thinking

Creativity

Collaboration

Communication

Information literacy

Media literacy

Technology literacy

Flexibility

Leadership

Initiative

Productivity

Social skills

This is Vincent 

Introduce yourself and explain that you will be coming to give a number of lessons about Vincent van Gogh. You have even brought one of his paintings with you. It’s not the real thing, but it almost looks like it is.

Don’t reveal at this point which painting you’ve brought. The museum edition is on an easel, with a cloth draped over it.

Explain that you’re going to make something in each lesson:

Lesson 1. A poem & drawing

Lesson 2. A painting

Lesson 3. A photo

Lesson 4. A leporello

Lesson 5. An exhibition of everything you’ve made

Are you like Vincent?

I don’t know what I want to be yet

1

I’m stubborn

2

I like nature

3

I find it difficult to stick to rules 

4

I work hard / don’t give up easily 

5

I fall in love very easily

6

I like to do things in a new or different way 

7

One day I’m happy and full of energy, and the next I’m tired and feeling down 

8

I want to mean something (to others/the world) 

9

I make my own choices, even if they are not popular 

10

Explain: before we start exploring the life of Vincent, and we discover whether you already know something about him, let’s have a look at Vincent himself, and whether you are like him. I’ve got ten statements. Think for yourself whether you think each one describes you. You don’t need to share your answers. Keep a count of how many times you answer yes. 

Discuss the fact that anyone who often answered ‘yes’ is like Vincent in some ways. 

Film clip: My Story, duration: 4:51 min

What are you good at? 

The film ends with the question ‘what are you good at?’. 

Ask the kids what they are good at. Ask them some more questions about it.

Was it difficult to learn? Did you have to do loads of practising like Vincent, or were you good at it straightaway? Is it fun to learn something, or is it only fun once you can do it? Have you ever had the feeling that you were born to do something? Like dancing or football, for example?

And if the kids can’t think of anything they’re good at, ask them what they would like to be good at. And what is ‘good’ anyway?

-    Play the soundscape of the painting in the reproduction you have brought. Don’t tell them the title yet!
-    Assignment: draw what you hear. The students should sketch what they hear. Afterwards, gather together all the sketches. In what ways are they alike? What will be in the painting?

Reveal the reproduction of The Harvest. Explain that the students will have only 10 seconds to look at it, then cover the painting again. What did the students see?

Now let them look at it for a little longer. What similarities are there between the sketches and Vincent’s painting?

Explain that Vincent van Gogh made the painting when he lived at the Yellow House in Arles. The landscape you can see in The Harvest was close by. Vincent admired the life of country folk, so he liked to paint these fields during harvest time.

We’re not allowed to touch real paintings by Vincent, but this is a reproduction, made with a 3D printer. Invite the students to come and feel it (in threes, for example). What can they feel? Allow them to discover that Vincent worked with thick oil paints.

This painting feels like….
This painting smells like…
This painting tastes like….
This painting sounds like….
This painting looks like….

Assignment: you are going to use the painting to write a poem. The first step is to copy and complete the following phrases:

This painting feels like….
This painting smells like…
This painting tastes like….
This painting sounds like….
This painting looks like….

Make sure the sentences vary in length: long, short or even just one additional word.

Examples for teachers:
This painting smells like the end of summer
This painting feels like grass tickling my feet and sun on my cheeks
This painting tastes like French stew
This painting sounds like cicadas and footsteps
This painting looks like holiday

This painting feels like….
This painting smells like…
This painting tastes like….
This painting sounds like….
This painting looks like….

Now remove the first part of each sentence, leaving only the words you added. This is the basis of the poem.

Example for teachers:
the end of summer

grass tickling my feet and sun on my cheeks

French stew
cicadas and footsteps
holiday

Is there anything you would like to change in your poem? You could for example repeat or move words or phrases. Or add something.

Ask who would like to share their poem. You might do this as follows:
-    Say that you are going to play the soundscape of the painting again
-    Then point out different students to share their poem
-    Ask them to stand, and read slowly and clearly
-    After each poem, everyone will clap once to show their appreciation (practise this)
-    When each student has sat down, point to the next, until the soundscape is finished.

Colours and feelings

Explain: Vincent knew about theories of colour, and he knew how to mix colours, which colours went together, and which ones didn’t. He was really interested in the effect colours had on each other.  

Show the colour wheel and explain how it works. On the inside are the three primary colours. You can’t make these by mixing other colours. In the ring around them are the secondary colours, which are made by mixing primary colours. The outer ring shows the tertiary colours, which you get by mixing secondary colours.

Colours that are opposite each other on the colour wheel have what we call ‘complementary contrast’. These colours are so far apart that they enhance each other (make each other stronger) if they appear close together in a painting.

Colours

• What colour contrasts do you see in The Harvest?
• What colour harmonies do you see in The Harvest?
• Where can you see broken colours?

Cheerful

Angry

Sad

Scared

Surprised

Irritated

Peaceful

Safe

Artist Vincent van Gogh
Title The Bedroom
Date October 1889
Location Arles, France
Collection Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Proud

Explain: What we have found out so far is that you can make colours look nicer by being clever about how you use them (think about the plate of food). But colours can also produce certain feelings.
Vincent always wanted to express a feeling in his paintings. He thought about this when he was choosing his colours.

Look at the painting of The Bedroom together.
Click on the hotspots and ask the students to explain what feeling they would associate with the painting and why.

Vincent wrote about his choice of colours, ‘I had wished to express utter repose with all these very different tones’.

This painting shows Vincent's bedroom in the Yellow House in Arles (in southern France). He had furnished the room himself, with simple furniture and his own art works on the wall.

Then explain that Vincent van Gogh wanted this painting to give a feeling of intense calm.

Some paintings by Van Gogh are very discoloured, so it’s no longer possible to see the exact colours that he used. In the case of The Bedroom lots of the red pigments have disappeared, so the purple wall (= red + blue) is now just blue. The red paint that Vincent used was very poor quality. Experts have made a reconstruction of what The Bedroom would have looked like originally.
Which version is calmer: the painting as it is now (blue wall) or the reconstruction (purple wall)? 

Lonely

Happy

Sorrowful

Frightened

Excited

Jealous

Calm

Gloomy

Vulnerable

Artist Vincent van Gogh
Title Wheatfield under Thunderclouds
Date July 1890
Location Auvers-sur-Oise, France
Collection Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Now do the same thing with this painting. Get the students to say what feeling they associate with it.

'They’re immense stretches of wheatfields under turbulent skies, and I made a point of trying to express sadness, extreme loneliness.'

In the final weeks of his life, Vincent made a number of impressive paintings of the wheatfields around Auvers, near Paris. This is one of them.

Then tell them that Vincent wrote that he painted the big, empty landscape to express extreme loneliness.

And what about The Harvest? Get the students to think about what feeling goes with this painting.

We’re now going to use meditation to discover more about the feeling that goes with The Harvest. Do you know what that is? Have you ever done it before?

Make space for the students to lie on the floor. If it’s not clean, or it’s too cold, ask them to sit in a comfortable position.

After the meditation, ask the students to remain lying or sitting quietly for a moment.

Explain: during the meditation you might have noticed how you felt at some point. Maybe you felt calm or agitated, or you felt tired or wanted to laugh. Anything really. Take time to think about how you felt at that moment. In the meantime, I’m going to hand out the paper you will be painting on in a moment. Write what feeling you experienced on the back of the paper.

Assignment: Look at The Harvest again. Which colours in this painting would you like to use in your own painting? Base your choice on the feeling you wrote down, and choose four colours that go with it.

Try to mix them as precisely as possible, so they really are the same as the colours in the painting.
Use the three primary colours + black and white. Explain that white lightens colours, and black makes them appear heavier.

Once the colours are right, paint them in the boxes  on the worksheet. Write beneath each colour how you made it. Also note what proportions you need (e.g. equal parts red & blue + small dab of white).   This will allow you to make precisely the same colour again if necessary.

Assignment: choose one element from The Harvest. Something that goes with the feeling you wrote down.
What might you choose if you feel strong? (e.g. the house, stands firmly on the ground)
What could you choose if you feel restless? (e.g. the horse, which you could picture rearing up)
What would you choose if you felt tired? (e.g. the haystack – you can sleep in it)
Now, make a painting inspired by your chosen subject. If you choose the haystack, for example, make your own painting of a haystack. You don’t need to copy the one in The Harvest, you can paint it as you wish. The painting might help you to paint a nice haystack if you look at it carefully. Then choose for yourself how you want to do it.
If your feeling is ‘tired’, and you prefer to paint a bed (you could fall asleep in either of them), that’s also fine.

Have you decided what you’re going to paint?

Step 1: sketch the picture using charcoal. Just sketch the most important lines very thinly.

Step 2: Now start painting. Use the four colours you mixed earlier. Add other colours if you want to.

The main thing is that you try to put your feeling into the painting.

Reflection

Discuss the paintings.
What went well?
What would you do differently next time?
Which colours are you pleased with?
Did you manage to express your feeling?

Ask if anyone can see a combination of three or four paintings that go together, and group them. Why do they go together? Is it because of the colour, the subject, the feeling? 

Leporello

Artist: Etel Adnan

Title: Journey to Mount Tamalpais (Rihla ilâ Jabal Tamalpais)

Year: 2008

Material: Leporello, watercolour and Indian ink on Japanse paper, 54 pages, open 30 × 567 cm, closed 30 × 10.5 cm

Collection: The Estate of Etel Adnan. Museé de l’Institut du monde arabe, Paris (donation of Claude and France Lemand)

Explain: these are leporellos, more commonly known as accordion books or concertina books. They are stretched-out artworks that are folded in a special way. You can display them either flat or standing them up. They are like paintings and books or letters at the same time. One of these accordion books were made by artist Etel Adnan. She lived from 1925 to 2021, so much later than Vincent. She was already 87 by the time she finally achieved success as an artist! But she was known as a writer before that. Etel Adnan’s accordion books often combine text (Arabic) with areas of colour, sketched lines or abstract forms.
Point these things out in the examples. 

Artist: Etel Adnan

Title: 'Untitled'

Year: 2014

Material: acryl on canvas, 38 x 46 cm

Collection: Collection Jean Frémon. © The Estate of Etel Adnan. Courtesy Galerie Lelong & Co., Paris/New York

Etel Adnan also made colourful landscapes, just like Vincent, but hers are made up of flat areas of colour. So Vincent and Etel both loved to paint landscapes in bright colours.

Letter: 615
From: Vincent van Gogh
To: Theo van Gogh
Date: Arles, Monday, 28 May 1888

Vincent wrote in a letter that he found accordion books very inspiring. He planned to make some, but it never happened. So today we’re going to make an accordion book inspired by The Harvest. It’s going to be a combination of colours, text and drawings, just like the ones by Etel Adnan.

Hand out the blank accordion books.    
Explain: We’re going to build the book up in layers. For the first layer, made using watercolour, we’re going to look for flat areas of colour in The Harvest. Make a square with your hands, as a frame that you can look through. Come and look at The Harvest in groups. Screw up your eyes a bit so that you only see the colours, not the details, and decide which combinations of colours and shapes you like.
Use watercolours to paint a number of areas of colour in your accordion book. Don’t use too much water, so that it will dry quickly
You don’t need to paint anything particular; it doesn’t have to represent anything.
Don’t bother about the folds in the book. You actually get a more interesting if you just ignore them when you’re painting. 

Now draw two squares anywhere you like in your book, and a larger square or rectangle somewhere else. Just a thin outline will be enough. Again, don’t worry about the folds, or the colours you painted before.
We’re going to make small drawing or sketches in these boxes in a moment.

Assignment: Take out the poem you wrote in lesson 1. Now write it in your accordion book. You can repeat, change or add phrases if you want. You can also look up and write out words in another language or alphabet. Vincent was very inspired by Japanese characters, and sometimes added them to his paintings. Etel had her poems for her accordion books translated into Arabic for political reasons. So both of them were inspired by other alphabets.
Just write over the colours, but avoid the boxes you drew.

Artist: Vincent van Gogh

Date: June 1888

Title: The Harvest

Material: Watercolour

Collection: private collection

Vincent also made a pen and ink drawing of The Harvest. In this version you can see that he used lots of dots and lines to draw all the different little fields and crops. Make a square with your hands again and come up to the smartboard. Choose two bits of the drawing and try to draw what you see in the two squares in your accordion book.

You’ve now just got the big rectangle left. Look back at all the sketches you’ve made during these lessons. The farmers in different poses, the sketch that goes with the soundscape, the object from different perspectives. Which one do you think deserves to be improved on in the big box? Do that now.

What does your accordion book need now to bring it all together? Decide for yourself, and add the finishing touches. For inspiration you can look at the work you’ve already done, or add some more patterns with dots and lines.  

Reflection

Gather all the accordion books together and discuss them. You could use the following questions:

• ARE THERE ANY LEPORELLO’s WHERE YOU CAN EASILY TELL WHO MADE IT?
• WHICH LEPORELLO’s HAVE INTERESTING COLOURS OR DETAILS?
• DID YOU ENJOY MAKING THE LEPORELLO
• NB: THERE ARE NO RIGHT OR WRONG ANSWERS HERE.

Explain: Vincent always sent his paintings to his brother Theo. He took the canvas off the stretcher and rolled it up so that he could post it. Theo would then try to sell the painting. An accordion book is much easier to send. Is there someone you would like to send yours to? Maybe someone who doesn’t live close by, but means a lot to you?    Or someone close by who you want to give something special to. 

The exhibition

Re-establish contact with the kids and tell them that today you’re going to be making the exhibition of everything you’ve made in the lessons. To inspire the kids, tell them something about what the Van Gogh Museum looks like. 

Van Gogh Museum

Explain: There’s lots of art in the Van Gogh Museum by Vincent and artists who lived at the same time as him. This is what the building looks like. Inside you can see some of Vincent’s most famous masterpieces, including The Harvest. We also have exhibitions that change a couple of times a year, so people are always thinking about the best way to show paintings and drawings.
To set up an exhibition, you have to think very carefully about what you are going to hang where. And whether you are going to hang things, or lay them down.

slaapkamer in het museum

Label

Vincent van Gogh 1853 - 1890 

The Harvest, 1888

oil on canvas

Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)

You can almost feel the dryness and heat in this painting of the flat landscape around Arles in the south of France. Van Gogh combined the azure blue of the sky with yellow and green tones for the land to capture the atmosphere of a summer’s day. He worked in the wheatfields for days at a time under the burning sun. This was an immensely productive period, in which he completed ten paintings and five drawings in just over a week, until a heavy storm brought the harvest season to an end.
Van Gogh wanted to show peasant life and work on the land – a recurring theme in his art – and painted several stages of the harvest. We see a half mowed wheatfield, ladders and several carts. A reaper works in the background, which is why he titled the work La moisson or 'The Harvest'. Van Gogh considered it one of his most successful paintings, writing to his brother Theo that the ‘canvas absolutely kills all the rest’.

Explain: This is a photo of The Bedroom hanging in the Van Gogh Museum, with the label next to it that we read last lesson. It’s hanging with other paintings that were all made in Arles. Because it is right in the middle, you really get the feeling that you are looking at an important piece by Vincent. The people who arranged things in the museum decided to paint the wall blue. Do you think the colour matters?

Let’s test it.

Orange makes The Harvest…

Blue makes The Harvest …

Green makes The Harvest …

Yellow makes The Harvest …

You’ve brought with you four pieces of fabric the size of a sheet in different colours: green, orange, blue and brown. Together with one of the students, hold each one up in turn behind the museum edition. Do this without saying anything, until you’ve done all the colours. Hold the sheet behind the painting for at least 15 seconds. The kids should look quietly and think about what the background colour does to the painting.

After each colour, the students should write down one word to finish the sentence on the slide. Eventually, everyone will have written down four words.

Divide the class into pairs. The kids tell each other what they wrote down in random order. Then they try to guess which word belongs with which colour.

Then discuss as a class whether there were any surprises, or had they all written down more or less the same things? What did you notice about the effect of the different background colours? (e.g. a different colour can draw your eye to things in the painting that you didn’t notice before / colours seem more intense or softer / you might get a different feeling from the painting) Which colour do you think goes best with this painting?

On the other side of the gallery where The Harvest hangs in the museum is the painting Sunflowers. These are famous pictures that Vincent painted in the same period. They both have bright colours and the paint is very thick and lumpy.

Sunflowers is also on a blue wall. This makes all the shades of yellow in the painting even more yellow. You might like to refer again to the colour wheel.

When the Van Gogh Museum opened in 1973 there were very different frames on the paintings than we have now. You can see them in this old photo. The frames are simpler. At the front is Vincent Willem van Gogh, Theo van Gogh’s son, who officially opened the museum. 

Evaluation

Evaluation 

• structure of the training
  
• content of the training
  
• length of the training

• do you have suggestions to improve the training?
• do you think the offer in line with the experience of your students?

Learning objectives clear for your students

Thank you!