Art History Education Outreach
Partners in Education is pleased to combine with the UCSB Art History Department to offer a new and unique resource for teachers. These presentations, geared to assist teachers as a tool for addressing standards and topics in their classrooms, especially those studying social studies, cultures, foreign languages, and art.
Partners will coordinate the screening and scheduling of all Art History graduate students and interns. As the educator, you need only to select:
- Presentation(s) for your class
- Date(s) available for these presentations
Schedule a presentation by clicking on the link below the desired presentation. If you experience any technical difficulties, contact us directly to schedule: lucille@sbceo.org or (805) 964-4710 x4403.
The Art History Education Outreach Program is comprised of UCSB graduate and undergraduate students who are dedicated to enriching the educational experience of students in the Santa Barbara area through art history. Learning about the history of art and architecture is not only a valuable way to think about cultural, political and social history, but also provides an opportunity to develop critical visual analysis skills that many students are not introduced to until college. We recognize that classrooms often operate under strict time constraints, and so in addition to offering new information to students, our presentations will provide novel ways for students to engage with existing state content standards and ultimately common core standards. Through visually exciting presentations and classroom activities, students will be able to explore the importance of the visual arts in history and in their daily lives, and have fun doing it!
Aztec Life and Writing (7.7) |
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Focus:
- Presentation of images drawn from Aztec and Colonial Mexican manuscripts with an explanation of how they were read and used. The manuscripts record various aspects of Aztec life, including what they wore, ate, believed, and behaved. Images of sculpture and monuments will further help students understand the civilization.
Objective:
- Students will understand how we can use art to learn about the lives of the ancient past.
Instructional activities:
- 10-15 minute warm up discussion on what students already know about the Aztec, Mexico, and the ancient world.
- 15 minute worksheet exercise identifying pictographic place names and words in order to understand what the images are saying.
Duration: 55-60 minutes |
Graduate Student: Deborah Spivak
Research Interests: Ancient and Colonial Latin American Art and Archaeology
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English Monarchy (7.9, 7.11) |
Queen Catherine
by Peter Lely
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Focus:
- English Renaissance (Tudor and Stuart monarchs, from Henry VIII–Charles I).
- How and why different messages were conveyed through portraits throughout their reign
- Basic iconography and costumes of monarchy
Instructional Activities:
- A matching game on PowerPoint in which students will match portraits with the intended message‖
- Other PowerPoint games
- Multiple-choice quizzes
Duration: 45 minutes |
Graduate Student: Diva Zumaya
Research Interests:
• Portraits of women from 1660-1837 The Longest Century
• Arts of Imperial Spain
• Early Modern women artists
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Women Artists (7.8) |
Self Portrait
by Sofonisba Anguissola
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Focus:
• The roles of women in the Renaissance
• Artistic and personal biographies of several women artists including Sofonisba Anguissola and Artemisia Gentileschi
Instructional Activities:
• Students will make their own self-portrait and present them to the class.
• Students will explain what they included in their self-portraits, and why.
Duration: 45 minutes |
Graduate Student: Diva Zumaya
Research Interests:
• Portraits of women from 1660-1837 The Longest Century
• Arts of Imperial Spain
• Early Modern women artists
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Interpreting the Renaissance through Paintings (7.8) |
Orazio Gentileschi, Annunciation 1623
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Focus:
- Leonardo da Vinci wrote that a painting ought to convey the same meaning to everyone who sees it. We will test the possibility that a painting can actually do this, and discuss the conditions that lead to similarity or difference in the meanings we see in artwork.
Objective:
- To demonstrate how prior assumptions shape the way we understand things and account for why we often disagree.
Instructional activities:
- Warm up and Presentation: 10 minute introduction
- Activity: 25 minute activity. Students will be divided into 3 groups, 1 for each of the 3 paintings displayed via PowerPoint. Using Leonardo da Vinci’s lead, students will write a short description of the depicted paintings. Students will discuss their responses, and then compare them to descriptions of the paintings in primary and secondary sources.
- Wrap-up: 10 minute discussion.
Duration: 45 minutes |
Graduate Student: Tom DePasquale
Research Interests: Italian Renaissance, Art Theory
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The Spectacular City: New York 1900-1920 (7.8, 8.6) |
George Bellows, New York, 1911
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Focus:
- This presentation will address New York City as a rapidly changing modern city and will discuss the impact that new technologies, large-scale immigration, and the changing role of women had on the city from 1900-1920. Through examining paintings, prints, and photographs to link visual skills and historical knowledge, students will explore the questions of why the city looked the way it did and in what ways the city itself was a spectacle.
Instructional Activities:
- As a class, we will look first at a historical work of art and identify as much as we can about who and what we see.
- As a class, compare the historical work to a photograph of present-day New York, looking for things that have changed over time and thinking about why they would have changed
- Wrap-up activity at the end, reviewing ideas by looking at another historic work and making a bullet point list of what the students have learned on a chalk or dry-erase board.
Duration: 25-30 minutes |
Graduate Student: Shannon Lieberman
Research Interests: 20th Century American Art, Performance Art, Post-Industrial Revolution America
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How Images Shape our Lives (Analysis Skills) |
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Focus:
- Students will look at a variety of images, ranging from 15th century prints to contemporary advertising, and discuss the ways in which images can teach us lessons or shape our behavior.
Objective:
- To encourage students to exercise their visual thinking skills and to become aware of how important images are in their everyday lives.
- To demonstrate that images are valuable tools for learning about other time periods and cultures.
Instructional Activities:
- Warm-Up: 5 minutes. As a group we will discuss images that we see every day, such as NO SMOKING signs. Students will be asked to point out the visual cues that help them understand the images’ meanings.
- Group discussion: 20 minutes. We will continue discussing other images throughout time that also teach a lesson or encourage a specific kind of behavior. Students will be encouraged to look carefully at the images, and to practice using visual information to understand the meaning of the image.
- Drawing Activity: 15-20 minutes. Students will break into small groups and draw their own image that visually demonstrates a lesson or moral of their choosing. Each group will then present their image, and the other students will be asked to determine the message the image represents.
Duration: 30-35 minutes |
Graduate Student: Maggie Bell
Research Interests: Italian Renaissance, Early Modern Christian Art, Reformation and Counter-Reformation
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The Reformation and Counter-Reformation (7.9) |
Sculptures on the Cathedral of St. Martin, destroyed by Reformationist iconoclasts in the 16th century.
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Focus:
- This presentation will explore how Protestant Reformers and supporters of the Counter- Reformation viewed the role of images in religious practice differently. Arguments about the value of religious imagery led to impassioned responses on both sides of the debate, such as acts of iconoclasm in which Reformers defaced or destroyed depictions of religious figures. Students will be shown examples of iconoclasm, as well as images produced by Protestants and Counter-Reformationists, which will be used to discuss the philosophical positions of each side.
Objective:
- Students will understand that images have powerfully influenced people’s thoughts and actions throughout time. Not everyone views images in the same way, and thinking about how people perceive images can give us a richer understanding of our world.
Instructional Activities:
- Warm up: Students will analyze advertising or political campaigns and asked to describe the ideas the images are trying to put in the minds of the viewer. This activity will introduce the idea that images can be used to convey ideas and arguments.
- Students will be given cloze notes to help them with historical key terms like iconoclasm, idolatry, devotion, Council of Trent, heretic etc., and art historical key terms like dynamic movement, composition, subject, viewer etc.
- Students will be shown Reformationist and Counter Reformationist images. In small groups students will be asked to make a list of the parts of the image that illustrate the arguments of either the Protestants or Catholics. We will then reconvene as a class to discuss results.
Duration: 30-35 minutes |
Graduate Student: Maggie Bell
Research Interests: Italian Renaissance, Early Modern Christian Art, Reformation and Counter-Reformation
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The Other History: What Outsider Artists Can Teach Us About Ourselves |
Henry Darger, Untitled (Allover Flowers)
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Focus:
- Introduce the students to artists and art generally not discussed in traditional academic settings such as Henry Darger, Bill Traylor, and various visionary environments such as the Watts Towers and the Dickeyville Grotto. We’ll take a look at what I call the “other” history of art of the twentieth century, drawing attention to the fact there are always additional stories to be told, voices to be heard.
Objective:
- To show students that there are other histories not discussed in books and that they can become active participants in the discovery of new histories. Outsider art teaches us that no matter how strange or weird someone might seem to be on the surface, it doesn’t mean that they do not have stories to contribute to the fabric of history. Being “not normal” can be an asset and I want to show the students that embracing things that make them uniquely them, whether it be a special interest or talent, is one of the keys to success.
Instructional Activity:
- Guided looking activity (10 minutes). Henry Darger was an artist that created hundreds of illustrations to accompany his 15,000 page novel, In the Realms of the Unreal. Instead of freehanding his drawings, he would trace images clipped from magazines, newspapers, and coloring books. In this exercise I would like to engage students in the act of careful examination as a method to gain knowledge.
- I would provide a large image of a Darger drawing on a PowerPoint
- I would then give the students a handout of various advertisements and clippings Darger traced directly onto the drawing
- As a class we would then point to the specific parts of the drawing Darger traced from these visual materials, showing how he created a drawing out of multiple visual sources.
- After discussion I would then show them exactly where and how he used these visual materials.
Duration: 35-40 minutes |
Graduate Student: Alisa Alexander
Research Interests: Folk Art, American Visual Culture, and Visionary Environments
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Intern Biographies
Sam Buck: I am a third year undergraduate honors student double majoring in Psychology and Economics, with a minor in Art History. It has been 4 years since I took my first art history class. Since then, I have found in myself a profound appreciation for museums, a curiosity in the artist's message, and a deeper understanding of our culture as a visual entity. It is my belief that
a basic understanding of how people relate to images is an invaluable resource that will help people in all walks of life.
Rene Magritte, The Treason of Images, 1929
Eden Slone: I am a second-year History Major/Art History Minor at UC Santa Barbara. After falling in love with American History and museums on a school trip to Washington D.C., museum education is what I have set my academic and career sights on, and art played a huge part in this decision! Art often depicts monumental moments in history, and for me, I love learning why a piece was made – what is the history behind it? What is the artist trying to tell the viewers? Art education is not only learning about art, but using art as a tool to learn through it. The painting below, located in the U.S. Capitol Building Rotunda, helped foster my love for American History and art when I realized that art can be a visual aid for learning in a fun, interactive way instead of simply reading about historical events.
John Trumbull, The Declaration of Independence, 1786-1797
Catherine Estrada: Catherine is a student as Santa Barbara City College, where she is studying Art History and Studio Art. She is currently interning at the SBCC Image Resource Center and tutoring students in Visual Literacy and Renaissance-to-Modern Art. She is especially interested in the way art is used for personal and societal responses, and is researching and comparing the European post-WWI art and American post-WWII art.
Mark Rothko, Untitled, 1950s
Mayge Lee: I am currently a junior, double majoring in Art History and English, and minoring in Asian American studies. Originally, I declared as a Communications major, but after enrolling in an Art History class as a GE requirement, my outlook on paintings and sculpture changed. That being said, I am interested in religious art of Northern Italy, specifically the Netherlands during the 14th-16th century. All works of art have a powerful effect on the lives of people and are rooted with deep historical notions, especially of religion and society. My favorite painting has to be Geertgen tot Sint Jans, Man of Sorrows. I was struck by the powerful effect of this particular image, especially the Passion of Christ and his suffering. It is remarkable that painters during this period were able to construct a beautiful and powerful image like this.
Geertgen tot Sint Jans, Man of Sorrows, 1486.
