Curriculum & Education
Project: Develop Teaching Guide and Collatoral Materials to Accompany the documentary “Jefferson”
Client: PBS/Ken Burns/Florentine Films
“Images of Jefferson: How To Look at Portraits”
Background
Throughout the documentary Thomas Jefferson, portraits are used to depict Jefferson at different stages in his life and career. Students can use these portraits as a way to become acquainted with Jefferson and his contemporaries. In this lesson, students will be asked to analyze the way Jefferson was posed in various paintings, what he chose to wear, and the environment in which he was painted. Students will learn about analyzing portraits by first observing current photographs of our President and by considering the messages these photographs convey. They will then consider how photographs differ from portraits and what messages and information are conveyed by each medium. Students will then analyze and discuss the portraits found in Jefferson to gain a better understand of what messages Jefferson wanted to convey in each of his portraits.
Discussion Questions
Bring to class three recent newspaper photographs of the President. How does the picture portray the leader? For what purpose was the photograph taken? Is the photograph taken in a formal or informal setting? Is the President posed? Does the photograph portray the President as a formal, serious person, or as a casual, "every day" person? What do you think the photographer would want us to notice about the photograph?
Bring to class a replication of a portrait of a recent President. How does the portrait differ from the photographs discussed above? Do portraits serve different purposes than photographs? Which mdium do students think is a better medium for preserving images of our leaders? If photography was not yet invented, what types of portraits would students want painted of our current President? Would they be formal or informal? Would they portray the President at work or in a more relaxed setting? If only three portraits of our current President were to be preserved, what messages about the President would students want those portraits to convey?
Forward the film to the portrait of Jefferson found in the opening segment. (Time Code 4: 17) Can you tell if the purpose of the portrait is personal, public, or commemorative? Look carefully at how Jefferson is posed, his facial expression and…
Project: Teacher Resources for “Looking at Portraits”
Client: MFA, Boston Education
The arts serve as primary sources/material culture for history as well as historical understanding.
Students learn to “read portraits” through modeling Visual Thinking Strategies and make use of historic arts (architecture, fashion, objects…) to ask questions about the sitter and artist and what the portrait reveals about time, place, human story, culture.
Overview
Among the most personal works of art, portraits connect us both to the sitter and to the artist. The goal of a portrait is usually straightforward - the representation of a specific person or persons as they wished to be portrayed. For this reason, we are often able to "decode" portraits by analyzing the choices artists make and the way they convey certain messages. The more we know about the artist and the sitter and the purpose for which a work was created, the better able we are to surmise which choices in a portrait were made by the artist and which by the sitter. The materials in this packet suggest a variety of ways of looking at and thinking about portraits; we hope they will also serve to introduce broader discussions of both human and artistic issues.
When we describe people we know well, or take photographs of them, we realize how many elements make up a person's identity. Portraits record physical appearance, social standing, individual personality; the degree to which each aspect is emphasized varies in different works and also from culture to culture. In Western cultures where individuality is highly valued, specific physical features and characteristics have been stressed in portraits. In traditional Asian cultures, the individual is more often defined in terms of position within the family, social class, or religious group. As a result, portrait features tend to be more generalized, representative of a type rather than an individual. In some eras, portraits were idealized - ancient Egyptians are almost always shown young and strong, without blemish; other cultures, such as the Republican period in ancient Rome, favored a more realistic, "warts and all" depiction.
Portraits represent specific individuals but they are also windows on the larger society in which those people lived, reflecting its customs, values, and ideals. They tell us not only how people dressed and what their homes looked like, but also what attitudes and expressions were considered appropriate and desirable in different times and places. Given the roles of men and women in most cultures, it is not surprising that traditional stances and attributes in male portraits often express power, in female portraits beauty. (Attributes are objects included to symbolize esteemed virtues - fidelity, courage, piety, industry - or to represent the activities or profession of the subject - merchant, minister, ruler, mother, artist.) The invention of photography in the nineteenth century provided a simple and inexpensive means of capturing a likeness, and in the twentieth century, photographs serve most of our portrait needs. As photographers began to capture fleeting movements and expressions, casual poses and gestures characteristic of a particular individual began to be used in painted and sculpted portraits as well...
