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| Wedding Portrait (The Arnolfini Marriage) |
4th Grade Lesson Plan
Who painted this scene?
Not a great deal of biographical detail is known about Jan van Eyck, who was born around 1390. He apparently had a brother, Hubert, with whom he collaborated for a time and who died in 1426. (Show on Map )The van Eyck family was from Maastricht, which is in the southern part of what is now Holland, and which was a powerful Roman Catholic city in Medieval times. Jan's career is well documented after 1422, when he began working as a court painter for John of Bavaria, who was the Count of Holland. From about 1430 until his death in 1441, Jan lived in Bruges, in what is now Belgium.
What
What kind of a painting would you say the van Eyck painting is? Is it a landscape, a still life, what else do you think it might be?
WHY?
It is called The Arnolfini Marriage
Where? Inside a home with just the bride and groom and their dog pictured.) Tell the class: Actually, there are more than just two people and a dog pictured here. Can anyone see how many people are really present here? (If no one volunteers, tell them to look carefully in the mirror and tell what they can see. They should be able to see 4 figures all together.) Tell the students that people think one of the figures in the mirror is the artist and another is a witness to the wedding. Ask them: Why would they need a witness? (to make the marriage official; they have no priest or rabbi to be the official person to marry them
How did he make this?
Color
Brush strokes
Paint: The van Eyck brothers were for a long time credited with discovering, or even inventing, the use of oil paints as opposed to the egg tempera generally in use up to that time. In fact, it seems that the van Eyck contribution was in developing a combination of linseed and nut oils plus a kind of varnish (made of various resins) as the medium in which to grind pigments, all of which made it possible to change radically the method of painting. Up until that time, artists would need to put a painting in the sun to allow each application of paint to dry before putting on the next. With the kind of oil-based pigment the van Eycks developed, painters were able to allow different layers of paint to show through one another, which provided a much richer play of light and shadow and a kind of jewel-like sheen to emerge. The details caught in the portrait of the Arnolfinis would not have been possible without these changes in the technique of using paint and color. These changes affected painters of the Italian Renaissance as well as the Flemish and German painters of the North.
Portraits were used to document a wedding, just as a witness would do nowadays.
WHEN
Ask the students where on their timeline they would place this painting. (Encourage as many responses and reasons as possible.) Tell them that actually this painting belongs in the period you have talked about as the early Renaissance. The painting was done in 1434. (Indicate on the timeline where that falls, or have someone in the class do it.
Color
Brush strokes
Paint: The van Eyck brothers were for a long time credited with discovering, or even inventing, the use of oil paints as opposed to the egg tempera generally in use up to that time. In fact, it seems that the van Eyck contribution was in developing a combination of linseed and nut oils plus a kind of varnish (made of various resins) as the medium in which to grind pigments, all of which made it possible to change radically the method of painting. Up until that time, artists would need to put a painting in the sun to allow each application of paint to dry before putting on the next. With the kind of oil-based pigment the van Eycks developed, painters were able to allow different layers of paint to show through one another, which provided a much richer play of light and shadow and a kind of jewel-like sheen to emerge. The details caught in the portrait of the Arnolfinis would not have been possible without these changes in the technique of using paint and color. These changes affected painters of the Italian Renaissance as well as the Flemish and German painters of the North.
Play Guesstures (use words from the blog entry "Van Eyck" Mystery Sacks)
Players: Guesstures is a team game, needing a minimum of four players, but having no maximum team size. Divide the players into two teams–try to be even if possible, but if one team has an additional player, it is okay. Each team cycles through its roster, with each player acting out four words on the Guesstures cards.
Guesstures Scenes and Cards:After you have divided your group into teams, each team will act out Guesstures cards in two Scenes (rounds). In Scene one, players draw from the blue card deck, while drawing from the red deck in Scene two.
Using the Mimer Timer: Decide which team will go first. Place the Mimer Timer on a flat surface in front of the first actor. Open the arm of the Mimer Timer, and push the switch on the right-hand side of the unit upwards. This prevents the timer from winding down before the round begins. Wind up the Mimer Timer by twisting the knob until it will not twist further.
Guesstures Scenes and Cards:After you have divided your group into teams, each team will act out Guesstures cards in two Scenes (rounds). In Scene one, players draw from the blue card deck, while drawing from the red deck in Scene two.
Using the Mimer Timer: Decide which team will go first. Place the Mimer Timer on a flat surface in front of the first actor. Open the arm of the Mimer Timer, and push the switch on the right-hand side of the unit upwards. This prevents the timer from winding down before the round begins. Wind up the Mimer Timer by twisting the knob until it will not twist further.
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