21 skills festival

• Art

Instructies

Equipment

• Easel
• Cloth for the easel
• Museum edition ‘The bedroom’
• Digital Blackboard/screen
• Internet connection
• For each student:
• A pencil (grey)
• Pencil sharpener
• Eraser
• Worksheet for lesson 1

Approximate timings for this lesson:

• Intro and are you like Vincent 15 minutes
• True or false 10 minutes
• Film clip + what are you good at 5 minutes
• Colour / shape/ line incl. Zoom in assignment 25 minutes
• Info about bedroom/yellow house/ Roulin family/Arles 5 minutes
• Written assignment 25 minutes
• Discuss written assignment 5 minutes

Total 90 minutes.

Werkbladen

A4-assignment_sheet-VGM-DHL-def-1.pdf

Dit 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 story

Lesson 2. A drawing

Lesson 3. A painting

Lesson 4. A photo

Lesson 5. An exhibition of everything you’ve made

Ben jij net als Vincent?

Ik ben een doorzetter

1

Ik ben koppig

2

Ik hou van de natuur

3

Ik vind het moeilijk om me aan de regels te houden

4

Ik werk hard/geef niet makkelijk op

5

Ik word snel verliefd

6

Ik doe dingen graag op een nieuwe of andere manier

7

De ene dag ben ik blij en vol energie, de andere dag voel ik me moe en down

8

Ik wil iets betekenen voor de wereld of anderen

9

Ik maak mijn eigen keuzes, ook als niet iedereen daar blij van wordt

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. 

Waar of niet waar?

Check what the students already know about Vincent van Gogh. Explain that you’re going to show eight slides, each with two statements. One is true and one is false. What do the kids think, and why? First, read out both statements, so they can think for a moment. Then read them again. Anyone who thinks the statement is true should stand. If they think it’s false, they stay seated. This gives you an idea of what the kids already know, and you can gather some basic information. Use the information in this guide to give and explain the right answer for each slide.  

Waar of niet waar?
Stelling 1:

1. Vincent was een Nederlandse schilder die naar Frankrijk ging
2. Vincent was een Franse kunstenaar

The first statement (A) is true. 

Vincent was Dutch, but he made a lot of his paintings in France. He moved to Paris to get inspiration from French artists. He later moved to the French countryside because he loved painting it. Point out the different places on the map (see next slide).

Orange arrow is pointing to The Netherlands

Blue arrow is pointing to  France

Old map: 1843

Waar of niet waar?
Stelling 2:

1. Vincent schilderde de Zonnebloemen, de Aardappeleters en 43 andere schilderijen
2. Vincent maakte meer dan 850 schilderijen

Statement B is true. 

Vincent made more than 850 paintings in his life. We don’t know exactly how many, because lots of them have been lost. He also painted over some, and he swapped his paintings for other artworks. But he made many many paintings in just 10 years, that is certain. He called himself a ‘painting-locomotive’ (Vincent lived in the age of the steam train). 

Waar of niet waar?
Sttelling 3:

1. Dit is een foto van Vincent van Gogh .
2. Dit is een zelfportret door Vincent van Gogh.

Both are true. The photo shows Vincent at 19, when he did not yet know he would become a painter. He had put on his best clothes for a photograph that was going to be a gift for his father. In the self-portrait Vincent is a grown man. He painted himself looking in the mirror. Do the kids think the person in the photo and the self-portrait look the same? Unfortunately, there are no photo portraits of Vincent as an adult. 

Waar of niet waar?
Stelling 4:

1. Vincent maakte al geweldige schilderijen toen hij 12 was
2. Vincent moest goed oefenen om schilder te worden

Statement B is true. 

Vincent practised a lot to become a good painter. He had a hard time with perspective and proportions, for example. He made lots of studies so he could master these things. He also looked at a lot of art by other people, and read about art, teaching himself more and more. He developed a quick, rhythmic style of painting. He wrote that he had painted Wheatfield with Crows in an hour and a half, but it had taken him ten years to be able to do that. 

See quote on the next slide.

'I keep on making what I can't do yet in order to learn to be able to do it.'

Vincent wrote:

Waar of niet waar?
Stelling 5:

1. We weten niet wat Vincent met zijn schilderijen bedoelde
2. Vincent schreef honderden brieven over zijn kunst

Statement B is true. 

Vincent sometimes wrote two letters a day, most of them to his brother Theo. A lot of his letters have survived and they have been published. A lot of what we know about Vincent van Gogh comes from his letters. 

Waar of niet waar?
Stelling 6:

1. Vincent kreeg geld van zijn broer Theo om spullen te kopen
2. Vincent was een arme kunstenaar

Statement A is true. 

Lots of people think that Vincent was a poor artist. Actually, he had plenty of money, he just spent it rather quickly! He mainly bought lots and lots of painting stuff, but he also had to pay his rent. Vincent didn’t earn any money himself. He got it from his brother Theo, who tried to sell Vincent’s paintings in exchange. Theo continued to send Vincent money for ten years to help him make his living as a painter. 

Waar of niet waar?
Stelling 7:

1. Vincent werd pas beroemd na zijn dood
2. Vincent verkocht zijn schilderijen al voordat ze klaar waren, zo beroemd was hij

If only the second statement were true! Unfortunately, Vincent only sold one painting during his life: The Red Vineyard (see next slide).

Statement A is true. 

Info

Title: The Red Vineyard

Date: 1888

Collection:  Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow.

After answering the true/false questions, the kids know quite a lot about Van Gogh. Tell them that you’re now going to watch a film clip in which will they will find out more about him.

Wat zie je als er een röntgenfoto wordt gemaakt?

Welke kleuren zie je?  

Look for the reds, blues, greens and yellows in the painting. Are there any other colours? Did Vincent also use black and white? 

Explain that the colours we see in the painting now are not the same as the colours Vincent used. Most of the red paint he used was not light-resistant, and it gradually faded out of the image. That’s why the purple wall is now light blue. The floor was also much redder.

Which colours do the kids like best? The original colours, or the colours as they are now?

'Seeing this painting must give peace to the head, or rather, to the imagination.'

Vincent wrote:

Vincent wanted to make a painting that makes you calm. He wrote about it in a letter to Theo. Do the kids think he managed it? Who gets a completely different feeling from this painting? That’s quite possible, because art is always very personal.