Teaching Impressionism with Bible Principles

“I would advise young artists . . . to paint as they can, as long as they can, without being afraid of painting badly . . . . If their painting doesn’t improve by itself, it means that nothing can be done – and I wouldn’t do anything!” ~Claude Monet

It Can Be Taught Over a Couple of Days: Day 1

Firstly, I’d like to point out that the lesson can be taught over a couple of days. For the first day, you can focus on:

• The Leading Idea,
• A brief intro of Claude Monet with a quote,
• Then a Word Study based off of his quote.
• Following that a discussion about the Bible Principle can take place,
• Do a Key Individual Study of Claude Monet (his background, his beliefs, his family life, his contributions, etc.)
• Lastly, admiring different works of his art can be enjoyed together.

How to Make a Bible Principles Art Lesson

Secondly, what statement or question do you want to ask your students to get them thinking and engaged? This is called the Leading Idea. Let’s consider the following two options and then just pick one for your lesson.

• “Art has a purpose! Let’s discover what it is.”
• “Do you know that art has a purpose? Shall we discover what it is?”

Ennobled Artist Discussion

Then begin a discussion. For instance, “We’ll be learning about Master Artist Claude Monet as we study Impressionism. He once said:

“All I did was to look at what the universe showed me, to let my brush bear witness to it.” ~ Claude Monet

Continuing the conversation you could say, “What do you think he meant by what the universe showed him? If we look up the definition of universe in Webster’s 1828 Dictionary, we learn:

“Universe, n. The collective name of heaven and earth, and all that belongs to them; the whole system of created things.”

Then we can point out to our students that Claude Monet acknowledges that he acknowledged a Creator. Remember the rest of his quote? He said, “…to let my brush bear witness to it.”

Teaching a Relevant Bible Principle

When we consider “the whole system of created things” we think of all things being made by our Creator. So, a fitting Bible Principles is found in John 1:3:

“All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.”  John 1:3

Artist Activity

Evidence of Claude Monet bearing witness to God’s Creation can be observed in his paintings. For instance, this lesson’s activity could be simply be enjoying books of his paintings. If you don’t have access to these types of books, do an Internet search together of his paintings. And discuss his use of color, the feelings his paintings evoke, etc.

What Is Impressionism Discussion?

“Light, n. Tending to break out or open, or to shoot, to gleam, and as a noun, a breaking out in blotches, a gleam, indistinct light; that is apt to break out, that is bright, to make bright, to clear, to appear in spots; a darting, sudden throw, glance, flash; to throw, to fling, to pelt; lightening.”

“Color, n. 2. Appearance of a body to the eye, or a quality of sensation, caused by the rays of light; hue; dye; as the color of gold, or of indigo.”

Artist Activity- Day 2

Discuss with your students how eventually, Monet’s color pallet did not contain black. And over time he gave up browns… and other earth tones. He is quoted to say,

“In short, I use white lead, cadmium yellow, vermilion, madder, cobalt blue, chrome green. That’s all.”

 

In the examples below of what we did, you’ll see some browns in the paintings.  And this is because the copy that I printed out had browns in it vs. the image below of Monet’s Haystack Snow Effect.

Supplies:

• Water Color Paper (We like the brand Canson XL Series at Michael’s Craft Store. We buy the 9×12 pad. The paper weight is 140 LB. We have found this to work well with a variety of mediums. I like to use the 40% off coupons. They also have a teacher discount of  %15 on Fridays only- which can be combined with the coupon!)
• Pencils
• Oil Pastels- white, gray, blues, golden yellow, orange, red. (We buy Artist Loft brand at Michael’s Craft Store. It’s only around $5 for a box containing a large number of small sticks of colors).
• A printout of the painting or the simplified drawing of it.

Steps for the Art Project:

Step One:

Step Two:

Step Three:

Step Four:

***Remember that oil pastels may stain, so take care when using them.

Examples of What Some of the Students Did!