4th Grade Lesson 1 NON-OBJECTIVE ART

Richard Nimijean

Description

• cours - matière potentielle : objective
• cours - matière potentielle : script

4th Grade Lesson 1 NON-OBJECTIVE ART Page 1 of 7 Lesson Objective: To teach the children that art doesn't have to look like anything familiar or real. Art can be completely abstract and made up. Vocabulary: (If the vocabulary words have been provided on poster boards, refer to them here. Otherwise, write the words on the board before you start the discussion on vocabulary) Abstract art: A piece of art that does not represent real or natural forms.

• interesting thing about a collage
• additional background material
• canvas with a liquid
• soft edge
• canvas
• paint
• colors
• things
• art
• color

Sujets

• Objective
• Script
• Visitation
• Jenkins
• Graham
• Mondrian
• PICASSO
• Chicago
• Canvas
• Liquid
• Colors

Informations

• Publié par: mevang
• Nombre de lectures: 14
• Langue: English

Extrait

Artists,Society,andActivism:TheFederationofCanadian
ArtistsandtheSocialOrganizationofCanadianArt

AndrewNurse
MountAllisonUniversity

Dr.AndrewNurse,Coordinator,CanadianStudies,MountAllisonUniversity,MountAllison,
[e-mail]

AbstractTheFederationofCanadianArtists(FCA),establishedinthewakeofthe1941Kingston
Conference,becameacentralinstitutionthroughwhichCanadianartistsattemptedtore-
organizetheirrelationshiptosociety.Inparticular,membersoftheFCAbuiltonaseriesofmore
long-standingconcernsabouttheproblematicrelationshipbetweenartandsocietyunder
conditionsofmodernity.TheFCA’sgoalwastobridgethegapbetweentheartsandlifeand,as
such,itservedasafocalpointthroughwhichtheartistsdebatedthecharacterthisnew
relationshipshouldtake.LookingfirsttocontributetoCanada’swareffortandthenpost-war
reconstruction,theFCAultimatelyinstitutedaseriesofpoliciesthatleaditawayfromits
originalobjectivesevenwhileitmaintainedadiscoursecriticalofthefracturedandalienating
natureofmodernlifeandculture.



follow Bieler’s lead and establish the
Federation of Canadian Artists (FCA), In late June 1941, over 140 artists,
Canada’s first national artists organization
educators, critics, gallery officials and civil
that brought artists together as artists.
servants converged on Kingston, Ontario,
for the first national Canadian artists The 1941 Kingston Conference
conference. Expectations among conference occupies a prominent position in Canadian
organizers ran high. “I have no doubt in my cultural historiography. A variety of
mind,” Queen’s Artist-in-Residence André different studies argue that the Kingston
Bieler wrote National Gallery director H.O.
Conference constituted a key stepping stone
McCurry, “that this Conference, if to the realization of a professionalized, state-
successful, will be the sign post of supported Canadian cultural infrastructure.
importance on the long road of Canadian As early 1951, for example, key conference 1art.” In Bieler’s view, the conference organizer André Bieler, suggested that the
needed to address two pressing issues: Kingston Conference began the process
recent technical developments in artistic leading to the Royal Commission on
production and the role and place of the National Development in Arts, Letters, and 2artist is society. As the Kingston 3Sciences. In Making Culture, Maria Tippett
Conference unfolded, the second of these supported this assessment, arguing that the
issues took precedence as artists voiced their Kingston Conference stood at a key dividing
disaffection with the current state of
line in the institutional history of Canadian
Canadian culture and, in particular, what art. It served to draw out the idea that the
they viewed as the problematic relationship arts merited state financial support and
between the artist and society. This 4should not be left on a laissez-faire basis.
disaffection led the assembled artists to More recently, Jeffrey Brison has argued
SouthernJournalofCanadianStudies,vol.4,1(June2011) 1
that the Kingston Conference should be seen articulated their concerns with the state of
as part of an elite driven process of cultural Canadian culture and devised responses to
nation-building that culminated in the post- what they viewed as their marginalized
World War II expansion of state support for social position. Initially, Canadian artists
scholarship, medicine, education, and the saw World War II as a key opportunity to
5arts. contribute to society and illustrate the
importance of the arts. Increasingly,
The approach taken in this essay is however, their attention was devoted to
different. The extensive archival records left post-War cultural planning and the
by the FCA and its key officials allow us to construction of a new artistic order. Exactly
explore the historical dynamics of artistic what this order would entail was the issue
activism in Canada under conditions of that stood at the core of FCA activism.
modernity. What factors conditioned artistic
activism in modern Canada? What role
should the arts play in society? And, how
did this group of artists address the problems Modernity and the Problem of
they confronted? The modern age, Canadian Art
artists and intellectuals recognized, carried
with it a series of interrelated cultural In her study of the Kingston
processes that proved intensely problematic
Conference, Hélène Sicotte argues that the
for the arts. These included: the rise of
Depression and the beginning of the Second
consumerism linked to mass media, the World War forced artists to reconsider the
intensive and extensive commodification of 7role they played in society. In important
the arts, the economic instability of art ways, however, the issues raised at the
markets, and an increased social detachment
Kingston Conference reflected a specific
of the arts. Combined, these diverse
conception of modern culture that
processes produced rising artistic social transcended the press of immediate
alienation. In both Europe and post-World
circumstances. At the Kingston Conference
War II Canada, social and cultural alienation
and within the FCA, Canadian artists
propelled the growth of the avant-garde. As mobilized discourses that dated from the
both Peter Burger and Renato Poggioli note
early 1930s. Canadian artists and allied
in their classic studies of the European
intellectuals began to articulate a discourse
avant-garde, the modern age problematized that challenged the economic and cultural
the social, economic, cultural, and political
processes of modernity that refashioned
status of the artist. The avant-garde
long-standing concerns about the economic
constituted a reaction against socio- stability of the arts. They aimed to articulate
economic, cultural, and political alienation.
a position that addressed two inter-related
Its objective was to fashion a cultural praxis
but different issues: the economic status of
that animated a new fusion of art and the artist and the cultural problems of 6society.
modernity. Leo Smith, for example, argued
that the problems confronted by musicians
Beginning in the 1930s, shifting
in modern Canada were not directly related
aesthetic styles, the generalized economic
to the Depression. “Music,” he wrote, “has
crisis of the Depression, and new political
at the moment some new problems quite
issues forced Canadian artists to directly
other than those associated with the state of
confront the social detachment of the arts. In 8trade […] .” Musicians, Smith argued,
this sense, the Kingston Conference, and
confronted an ironic situation: there was, he
then the FCA, represented the culmination
believed, a greater demand for music then
of artistic, intellectual, and organization
ever before, yet less demand for the services
initiatives that began much earlier. The FCA
of musicians. Musicians faced new forms of
served as the vehicle through which artists
SouthernJournalofCanadianStudies,vol.4,1(June2011) 2
cultural competition from cinema and radio wealth but to the way in which societies
along with a listening public that could not approached art. Using the “ancient” artistic
differentiate good music from bad. “The traditions of colonial new France as an
trend of social legislation,” he wrote, “the example, Barbeau argued that even
growth of democracy, the development of relatively poor societies could create the
mechanical instruments, scientific circumstances for the evolution of great art
inventions, etc., have combined […] to if they were committed to it and understood
increase uncritical listening.” The result, he its value:
argued, was dramatic expansion of “cheap
9music” at the expense of the musical arts.
They [the colonial population of In his various writings on the arts,
New France] mortgaged the future Group of Seven member and future FCA
activist Arthur Lismer argued that a series of to pay the craftsmen on the
installment plan and often in kind, broader historical processes had dislodged
but always met their obligations. Art the arts from a place of importance in
culture. Historically, Lismer suggested, art was essential, as in mediaeval times,
not a mere luxury, as it has become had played an important and creative social
in modern life. Hence its vitality, at role. In the modern age its cultural
prominence had been dislodged by science, a time when most of America was
13still a wilderness. mass media, and religion. The modern
productive process, he argued, created goods
“The collaboration among common that had little artistic merit, but won popular
people, the craftsmen, and the diocesan acceptance because industry used "high-
authorities,” he concluded, “is what made pressure salesmanship" to delude
the growth of architecture in Quebec consumers. Artists, Lismer claimed, were
14possible.” being forced out of their traditional
occupations and into commercial pursuits
For A.M. Stephens, the issue was that allowed no freedom for creativity. He
systemic. The current economic system, characterized commercial art as the
Stephens noted in an essay on the subject, handmaid of industry: it debased and