Photomontage KIM BOEKBINDER/KRT
Barbara Streisand, Bruce Willis, Martin Sheen, and Sean Penn populate Pablo Picasso's antiwar painting "Guernica"

Art tells a lot about the time period in which it was painted. Art allows you to touch a variety of subjects and to have a variety of learning experiences. How does art reflect the social and political events of the time?

You are going to "live’ within a painting by a particular artist. You need to think about what would it feel like to be in a particular painting?  What was happening politically and socially in the country in which the painter lived and around the world during this time?

You will research your painter and his/her painting and write a research paper with a bibliography. You will write a story about yourself in the painting which is historically accurate.  You will give a five to eight minute oral presentation of your findings with one PowerPoint slide as your backdrop as you present.  This project is your final.

1. You will be assigned one of the following painters.

2. Research and gather biographical information about the artist. This will help you tell about how you met the artist and the reasons you where selected for this painting. Summarize this information and turn in for grade by May 4th or May 7th.  Please save this information into your folder on the Athenahs computer within the pghs workgroup.

3. Research the cultural, social and political events happening at the time of the painting to find the answers to the questions. What cultural changes in attitudes, trends and styles in art, literature, fashion, and people where prevalent at the time? Prepare a description of these elements that will become part of your final project.  Turn in for a grade by May 10th.  Again please save this information into your folder on the Athenahs computer.

4. Find a Good Picture by this artist. The one that you will "live" in.  You will need to research the time period in which this painting was done. What influenced the painter to paint what he or she did?  Why is their work different than the artists that came before?

5. Choose where and how you want to be in the scene. Imagine what you were doing and thinking in this scene. Get into the mood of the painting.

6. Using one of the school’s digital cameras. Take a picture of yourself in costume or in the position and feeling of the painting.

7. Insert yourself into the painting using Photoshop to meld the two pictures together. Create one PowerPoint slide and save it onto a 31/2 disk or into your folder on the Athenahs computer to use as your backdrop for your oral presentation.

8. Write the story about how you were selected to be in this artist's painting.  How did you come to be in a place were the artist would select you?  What are your political and/or cultural views? Your story needs to be historically correct although it is fiction.

9. Prepare an eight minute oral report of your project to which you will present to the class the week of June 2nd.

11.  The total project includes:

1. A fictional story of how you came to be in the picture.
2. The historically accurate life and times of the artist  
3. A title page with the artist's picture that includes you.
4. A bibliography.

How you arrange A and B is limited only by your imagination. The complete project is due June 1st or June 2nd.

The messages of a time and a place and the world live through art. Through this assignment you will have learned to appreciate richness and self-expression through time. Art is all these voices coming through time and through cultures, and it is a link to another period in history. 

                                                                            Evaluation Rubric