Name of one famous national artist chosen by the children in each school:
Our artist of Karlsruhe: Franz Marc
France, Lannion: Georg Seurat
Spain, San Lucar de barameda: Joan Miro
Portugal, Loures: Amadeo de Souza Cardoso
Belgium, Roeselare: Rene Margritte
Belgium, Ostkamp: James Ensor
England, Liverpool: David Hockney
Cypres, Nissou: Lefteris Economou
Italy, Rom: Leonardo Da Vinci
Each class of our school work with one artist, the children know about the life, the century of living, the art style and the pictures and skulptures of this artist. They draw pictures in the style of this artist, they goes to the art center hall here in Karlsruhe and have a look for the "real art". They cook a meal typic for the country and the area and time of life of the artists. The results of the cooking book you can see on the page art cooking book.
German artist chosen of the children from the day care centre Thomas-Mann-Straße
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| The blue horse |
Franz Marc
February 8, 1880 – March 4, 1916 was a German painter and printmaker, one of the key figures of the German Expressionist movement. He was a founding member of “Der Blaue Reiter“ (The Blue Rider), a journal whose name later became synonymous with the circle of artists collaborating in it. Marc made some sixty prints in woodcut and lithography. Most of his mature work portrays animals, usually in natural settings. His work is characterized by bright primary color, an almost cubist portrayal of animals, simplicity and a profound sense of emotion. Even in his own time, his work attracted notice in influential circles. Marc gave an emotional meaning or purpose to the colors he used in his work: blue was used to portray masculinity and spirituality, yellow represented feminine joy, and red encased the sound of violence.
Franz Marc died during the first world war in France as soldier.
Here some paintings of him:
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| The tiger |
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| Girl with a cat |
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| The village Tirol |
Activities of the children in our day care centre to Franz Marc:
Visit in the art centre of Karlsruhe:
The children had a look about the paintings of Franz Marc with a museum pedagogue and then they experiment with geomertical forms, the cubisme use. Then they play with colours and structures of Franz Marc and at the end they worked in the museum as artists.
Some examples of the childrens work to Franz Marc in our ateliers:
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| Sculpture "The tiger" |
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| Blue cat |
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| Collage: The blue horse |
Georges Seurat - Pointilisme
He was
born in France in 1859 and created a new style of painting
called
Pointilism. This style of Art is painting with little dots and
dashes of color.
If you
look at Seurat’s paintings closely, all you see are dots, but when
you move away from the painting, your eyes form the dots into a
picture.
The
children who learn french in our preschool, use the pointillisme to
design paintings of the Tour Eifel in Paris. In this lesson we speak
about the capital of France and we looked the picture of Gearge
Seurat « La tour d`Eifel « The children use their own fingers
as a medium to paint. This was a sensitive experience when they put
their finger in the cold and wet colour.
Joan Miro - 1893-1983
Spanish artist
Joan was
born as the son of a goldsmith and jewelry maker in Barcelona in
Northern Spain. He studied arts at the Barcelona School of Fine Arts
and at the Academia Gali. His parents would rather have seen him
taking a job as a serious businessman.
He even
took business classes in 1907 parallel to his art classes. Joan
worked as an accountant for nearly two years until he had some kind
of a nervous breakdown. His parents finally accepted their son's
choice of a career as an artist without giving him too much support.
In the
beginnings of his career he dabbled in different painting styles that
were fashionable at the turn of the century like Fauvism and Cubism.
Paris -
the Mecca of Arts
By 1930
the artist had developed his own style. Miro art is hard to describe.
It is characterized by brilliant colors combined with simplified
forms that remind of drawings made by children at the age of five.
Joan Miro art integrates elements of Catalan folk art. He liked to
compare his visual arts to poetry.
In the
1930s the artist's fame and recognition became international. From
1940 to 1948 the he was back in Spain. During this period he
experimented in different media - sculpture, ceramics and murals.
In 1947,
he came to the United States for the first time. He had several
own-man shows. The most important one was a retrospective at the MoMA
- The Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1951 and in 1959. In 1954
he won a prize at the Venice Biennale. In 1968 the artist finished a
commission for two large ceramic murals at the UNESCO buildings in
Paris.
His
Personality
Miro was a
disciplined hard working man. He spoke little and looked like the
perfect bourgois. He was orderly, reliable and punctilious. Nothing
of him had any touch of a bohemian.
He was
also a modest man. In spite of international recognition, his
financial situation was tense. He dreamed of a large studio where he
could fulfill the numerous art projects and ideas that he collected
in a little notebook. After World War II his time had finally come.
His first trip to the USA pushed his popularity and the market value
of his art work. And the modest little man pushed the galleries to
give him a fairer share out of the sales. In a letter to gallery
owners he wrote:
"What
I will no longer accept is the mediocre life of a modest little
gentleman."
In 1956
Miro could finally move into the villa of his dreams. Located in
Palma de Mallorca and built by the architect Josep Lluis Sert. The
new home was built in an ultra-modern style typical for the
avant-garde architecture of the fifties. In 1992 it was transformed
into the Miro Museum open for the public.
Joan
Miro died the 25th
of December 1983 in Palma de Mallorca.
Sculptures for our play ground in the Miro style
AMADEO
DE SOUZA – CARDOSO
The Portuguese
painter was born in 1887 in Mancelos. After he started studiing
architecture he went to Paris which was the center of the world at
the beginning of the last century.
There
he got to know a lot of other artists. These relationships gave him
the idea to work as a painter and to stop the studies. During his
years in Paris he also got inspirations from the “Blaue Reiter”
which is a bridge to the german painter Franz Marc who was a member
of the “Blaue Reiter”.
When World war 1914 - 1918
started, Amadeo de Souza – Cardoso had to leave France and also if
he tried to return it wasn´t possible for him.
