Lesson 4: Leporello
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Start the lesson and re-establish contact with the students.
Explain: today you’re going to make a very special thing inspired by The Harvest. It’s called an accordion book, or concertina book, or (the fancy name) a ‘leporello’. It’s a long, stretched out artwork in a very unusual form. I’ll tell you more about it in a moment. First, I want to show you the final painting Vincent made. Like the accordion book you’re going to make, it too is very long. Vincent cut this canvas himself, to get the unusual shape and size.
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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.
Point these things out in the examples.
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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.
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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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Have the students pair up and think about the following questions:
What colour contrasts do you see in The Harvest?
What colour harmonies do you see in The Harvest?
Where can you see broken colours?
Then discuss with the whole class.
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Have the students pair up and think about the following questions:
What colour contrasts do you see in The Harvest?
What colour harmonies do you see in The Harvest?
Where can you see broken colours?
Then discuss with the whole class.
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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)?
Which version is calmer: the painting as it is now (blue wall) or the reconstruction (purple wall)?
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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)?
Which version is calmer: the painting as it is now (blue wall) or the reconstruction (purple wall)?
Slide 21 - Tekstslide
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)?
Which version is calmer: the painting as it is now (blue wall) or the reconstruction (purple wall)?
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