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Lesson Plans
Art History ©1999
by Marilyn Stokstad
Focus Lesson 16
Chapter 28: "The Rise of Modernism in Europe and the United States"
AP* Course Description
- Renaissance to Present
- Nineteenth Century
- Twentieth Century
Key Components
- Instructor's Resource Manual with Tests, Vol. II: pp. 51–57, 82–83, 155–161, 198–203
- Study Guide, Vol. II: pp. 103–123
Key Web Sites
Given the changing nature of the Internet, you may wish to preview these sites. Check the Online Companion Web site for updated information and links to other sites.
Key Words and Terms
- formalism
- expressionism
- abstractionists
- caricatures
- chromolithography
- lithography
- classical
- graphic artist
- avant-garde
- complementary colors
- expressionistic
- primary colors
- washes
- illusionistic
- passage
- collage
- formalism
- rose windows
- manifesto
- icons
- woodblock
- stucco
- faktura
- historicist
- château
- arcaded
- piers
- interlaces
- curtain wall
- photomontages
- values
- assemblage
- readymades
- automatism
- frottage
- lunettes
- tondo
Suggested Pacing
Allow two-and-a-half weeks to cover this chapter due to the importance of the artistic movements discussed. The material in this chapter, along with Chapters 27 and 29, account for anywhere from ten to 30 percent of the AP* exam.
Test Strategy
To make the most of the limited time they will have to write essays on the test, students need to develop and use a plan for answering essay questions. As an introduction to assigning a timed in-class essay, help students work out a schedule for planning and writing their essays. They might spend three to four minutes reading the question prompt and brainstorming and organizing the points they want to make, 23 minutes writing, and the final three minutes making a quick proofreading and revision check.
Key Concepts
- Cubism
Cubism is among the most important, and difficult to describe, movements in art history. The text points out that the analytic Cubist paintings of Picasso and Braque resulted in "the gradual elimination of space and subject matter" (p. 1053), and that objects in the compositions "have lost not only their natural spatial relations, but their identities as well" (p.1054). - Formalism and Expressionism
The authors of the text use the two broad terms "Formalism" and "Expressionism" to help describe the mass of movements in modern art (p. 1025). These two poles are useful reference points while navigating the many styles presented in Chapter 28. - Misnomers
Many artistic movements have been badly named over the course of art history, but the titles "Fauvism" and "Cubism" are among the worst. Derain, Matisse, and Vlaminck exhibited with Henri Rousseau, who really painted wild beasts, a likely reason for their group being named "Fauves". But there are no cubes in Cubism. - "Complete Formalism"
Picasso and Braque's analytic Cubist style brought them to the brink of "complete formalism"—that is, painting so abstract that it no longer resembles the subject it pretends to represent. That brink disappears in the later work of Malevich and Mondrian, in movements called "Suprematism" and "De Stijl," respectively.
Summing Up Student Understanding
Assign students paintings by Picasso or Braque from their analytic Cubist phase, and ask them to "reconstitute" the subject matter based on the pictorial clues left by the artists. In a paragraph or two, have students describe the still life that they believe lay before the artist as he painted his picture. Students should carefully catalogue each clue left by the painter, including how it relates to an object in a still life. Printed words may indicate a newspaper, a cylinder may hint at a glass, a scroll form may be the end of a violin, a puff of smoke may come from a pipe, a heart might be from a playing card.
You may enlarge the activity by having students use outside texts on Cubism for more ideas on how to interpret what they see. You may also wish to mix in works from the synthetic period as well, although the visual language changes a bit.
This exercise is valuable in that it forces students to look more deeply into what appears to be a chaotic, nonrepresentational style, in order to find the structural elements that are as valid and solid as those found in the architecture of Palladio.