How were ideas of Modernism and the exploration of what is real expressed in other artistic mediums? STATION 1: Picasso s The Reservoir Horta De Ebro (http://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art- history/art-history-1907-1960-age-of-global-conflict/cubism/v/picasso--the-reservoir--horta-de-ebro-- 1909) As you listen to the presentation, answer these questions: 1. Why is this style called cubism? 2. What does Picasso do to perspective? 3. How does he unify the painting? 4. How does he treat shadows? 5. How is space depicted between buildings? 6. What happens to natural light? 7. How does Picasso capture SUBJECTIVE experience? 8. How would fit this work and the ideas behind it into our unit on Existentialism? STATION 2: Fishing Boats by Georges Bracque This work best exemplifies the cubist movement. Cubists like Bracque wanted to depict reality differently than just a two dimensional representation of what he saw. He also believed that artworks should stand on their own and not just copy nature. He thought reality existed in three dimensions, so the artist must render all three dimensions on the canvass. The challenge was to recreate all the dimensions in a way that was aesthetically pleasing. 1. What similarities do you notice between this painting and The Reservoir Horta De Ebro? 2. What has the artist done to the foreground, middleground and background of the painting? 3. Is there a natural light source?
4. How is the canvass unified? 5. What objects do you recognize? 6. Is this art? What is your rationale for your answer? Does art have to be objective ie: accurately depict real objects? 7. Does this painting capture SUBJECTIVE experience? What is your proof? STATION 3: Matthew Arnold, Dover Beach Questions: 1. Describe the setting in the first stanza. What is happening in the ocean? 2. What does the sound of the ocean remind the speaker of (lines 13 & 14)? 3. In stanza two, to what does the speaker think Sophocles equated the sound? 4. In stanza three, the author brings up the idea: the sea of faith. What do you think he means by this? What is happening to his own faith? 5. What is the solution to this problem with the sea of faith? How does this fit existential ideas? (think about how the speaker feels about the world around him lines 30-34) 6. If the last two lines are metaphorical, what are the ignorant armies? STATION 4: Picasso s The Bullfight 1. What do you know about Bullfighting? 2. What elements of Bullfighting do you see in the picture?
3. What is in the foreground, middle ground and background? 4. What is the sense you get from what is happening in the middle of the picture? Do feel it captures the actions that you envision happening during a Bullfight? 5. What is the mood of the picture? What evidence do you have that supports this? Does it correspond with how you feel about Bullfighting? 6. How is the Bull depicted? Does this depiction raise the fight to symbolic levels? STATION 5: E. E. Cummings, anyone lived in a pretty how town Questions: 1. What does anyone sing? What does he dance? 2. How do women and men feel about anyone? Who loves him more by more? What is the play on that name? 3. In the eighth stanza, what happens to anyone? 4. Why do think Cummings chose the names for his characters in his poem? 5. What type of town is suggested by the phrase pretty how? What type of impression does the speaker covey of the people from this town? How does he convey that their lives are monotonous and dull? 6. What two lines in the poem convey the passage of time? Why does Cummings vary these two lines? 7. How does this poem s theme fit into our conversations about existentialism? Station 6: Sylvia Plath, Mirror Questions: 1. How does the poem make you feel?
2. The speaker of the poem maintains: I am not cruel, only truthful-. If the truth hurts, do you think being truthful is cruel? Is the cruelty created by the viewer of the mirror? Explain. 3. Who is the speaker? How is the speaker human? Inhuman? 4. How does the woman feel about aging? What is your proof? 5. If the person looking into the mirror was male, would the attitudes conveyed in the poem be different? 6. How does this poem fit into the conversations we ve been having about existentialism?
Matthew Arnold Dover Beach THE sea is calm to-night, The tide is full, the moon lies fair Upon the straits; -- on the French coast the light Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. Come to the window, sweet is the night-air! Only, from the long line of spray Where the sea meets the moon-blanch'd land, Listen! you hear the grating roar Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, At their return, up the high strand, Begin, and cease, and then again begin, With tremulous cadence slow, and bring The eternal note of sadness in. Sophocles long ago Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow Of human misery; we Find also in the sound a thought, Hearing it by this distant northern sea. The sea of faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd. But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Retreating, to the breath Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world. Mirror Sylvia Plath I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions. What ever you see I swallow immediately Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike. I am not cruel, only truthful--- The eye of a little god, four-cornered. Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall. It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers. Faces and darkness separate us over and over. Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me, Searching my reaches for what she really is. Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon. I see her back, and reflect it faithfully. She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands. I am important to her. She comes and goes. Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness. In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish. Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night. Tremulous = characterized by trembling Shingles = beaches
anyone lived in a pretty how town by E. E. Cummings anyone lived in a pretty how town (with up so floating many bells down) spring summer autumn winter he sang his didn't he danced his did Women and men(both little and small) cared for anyone not at all they sowed their isn't they reaped their same sun moon stars rain children guessed(but only a few and down they forgot as up they grew autumn winter spring summer) that noone loved him more by more when by now and tree by leaf she laughed his joy she cried his grief bird by snow and stir by still anyone's any was all to her someones married their everyones laughed their cryings and did their dance (sleep wake hope and then)they said their nevers they slept their dream stars rain sun moon (and only the snow can begin to explain how children are apt to forget to remember with up so floating many bells down) one day anyone died i guess (and noone stooped to kiss his face) busy folk buried them side by side little by little and was by was all by all and deep by deep and more by more they dream their sleep noone and anyone earth by april wish by spirit and if by yes. Women and men(both dong and ding) summer autumn winter spring reaped their sowing and went their came sun moon stars rain