Artist Study: Caspar David Friedrich

Our artist study this week has been Caspar David Friedrich.  Using Barbara McCoy's Winter 2011 study (includes nature study, artist study and composer study), we were studying Trees and Bushes in the Snow, looking at it, following Barb's suggestions.

On Day 1, the assignment was to have the students just lookat at the painting, Trees and Bushes in the Snow.  Our current composer that we are studying is Bach, so we listened to some piece of Bach in the background as we observed the painting.

On Day 2, after observing the painting, each student narrated back to me their impressions of what the painting contained.

On Day 3 we covered some information about Caspar David Friedrich for the notebooking pages.

Later in the day my son informed me that he did not want to "waste any more time" on Friedrich since he "wasn't a famous artist" and had "only painted one painting". So, I came to the realization that switching from the Ambleside Online Composer Study method (six works of each artist over 12 weeks time) to the Harmony Arts Study method (one composer, one work in one week) had caused my son to conclude that the artist was less important than was true. So, I did some more work and some more research for a future day's lesson.

On Day 4 the students created their own art work recreation of  Trees and Bushes in the Snow.  I had made available markers, pastels, colored pencils... My son (I think he was having a bad attitude) created a work he entitled, "Fire Being Set to Caspar David Friedrich's Painting":

On Day 5 we brought out the notebooking pages to cover additional information. I informed the students that Freidrich was from the German Romantic era, and he was the most famous German painter of his time, having painted over 250 paintings that are displayed on a website dedicated strictly to him, Caspar David Friedrich dot org. Then we went through some additional paintings, viewing them on the computer (the first painting I had printed out):
Chalk Cliffs on Rügen;
The Morning;
The Lone Tree;
and The Tree of Crows.

Thought I was covering six, but I guess we only covered five paintings this week. At least my son's ideas about Friedrich have been corrected!

Thanks for reading. Happy studies to you!