Title: At the turn of the century

Lesson plan elaborated by: Magdalena Trysińska

Topic:

At the turn of the century.

Target group:

2nd‑grade students of a high school.

Core curriculum

General aim of education

The student learns about the worldviews of the period of positivism.

Key competences

• communication in foreign languages;

• digital competence;

• learning to learn.

Learning outcomes

Student:

• discusses the ideological assumptions of the era of positivism;

• explains the concept of modernism;

• knows what is characteristic of: Impressionism, expressionism and aestheticism;

• analyses and interprets works of modernist painting.

Methods/techniques

• activating

  • discussion.

• programmed

  • with computer;

  • with e‑textbook.

• practical

  • exercices concerned.

Forms of work

• individual activity;

• activity in pairs;

• activity in groups;

• collective activity.

Teaching aids

• e‑textbook;

• interactive whiteboard, tablets/computers.

Lesson plan overview (Process)

Introduction

1. The teacher determines the purpose of the classes, which is to learn about the selected directions of the modernism era. It gives students the criteria for success.

2. The teacher says about the cultural life of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Realization

1. The teacher starts the lesson; displays the task of the 1st e‑manual. Students together create a map of associations associated with the era of positivism. The task is to repeat the basic information about the era, which the pupils learned in earlier lessons, and at the same time to pay attention to new features that constitute the next epoch.

2. Students will get acquainted with the basic information about Impressionism. They look at the Coin image „Impression, sunrise” (the teacher displays the picture on the board). The students indicate the Impressionistic features implemented in the painting.

3. Optional exercise, depending on material availability: the teacher searches on the internet and launches the video: How to recognize Monet: The Basin at Argenteuil. Then the students, working in pairs, ask each other questions, which answers can be found in the film watched.

4. Students will get acquainted with basic information about expressionism. They look at the image of Munch „Scream” (the teacher displays the picture on the board). Then they call emotions that could express a character in the image of Edward Munch. They compare their proposals and discuss the topic: is one interpretation of Munch's work possible? The teacher or the chosen student summarizes the course and outcome of the discussion.

5. The teacher displays on the board a gallery of images created by expressionists. He asks students what goals could motivate the creators of this trend. Then he directs the conversation so that the students will indicate, among others rebellion against the bourgeois sense of taste and reality, grotesque shaping of the world. He asks students to justify that the paintings presented in the gallery present the expressionistic trend.

6. At the end, the students perform the task of the 8th‑textbook - they combine features with the names of artistic trends learned during the lesson.

Summary

1. The teacher asks students what they have learned today, whether the lesson was interesting for them. He asks them to evaluate their own work during the lesson. For this purpose, he can use a questionnaire or a decision tree prepared earlier or carry out an oral evaluation.

2. The teacher asks questions for a summary:
   - Explain why the new epoch of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries was called modernism.
   - Discuss the differences between the two trends in the art of the turn of the century: Impressionism and Expressionism.

Homework

1. Listen to the abstract recording at home. Pay attention to pronunciation, accent and intonation. Learn to pronounce the words learned during the lesson.

2. How is art perceived today? Can you find examples of modern aesthetics? Look for answers in the available sources, justify the verdict.

The following terms and recordings will be used during this lesson

Terms

Texts and recordings

At the turn of the century

The turn of the 19th and 20th century abounded in new but also revisited old trends and art movements. These trends permeated and encompassed ideologies, literature and art. During this period, the synthesis of art, meaning the unification of various fields, resulting from the desire to create a „total” work, was particularly prevailing. Music and painting became inspiration for poetry and the imagination, freed from all limitations, created bold, suggestive visions to reach the deepest layers of human sensitivity.

Impressionism was a movement of painting established in France in the 1870s, whose main objective was to break away from the realism and to present volatile, difficult to capture, often very subjective, sensations (hence the name: impression derived from a French word).

It appeared in various fields of art, especially in music (Claude Debussy, Karol Szymanowski).

Impressionism was especially revealed in painting. The play of light and colours blurring the contours are characteristic features of the Impressionist's works. The greatest Impressionists are, among others: Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, and Auguste Renoir. Poland's Impressionists include: Władysław Podkowiński and Józef Pankiewicz.

Expressionism as a conscious and precise trend appeared in Polish literature only at the end of the First World War. Despite that, its elements can be found in the works of a number authors of the turn of the 20th century. To name a few: Tadeusz Miciński, Wacław Berent, Stanisław Przybyszewski and Jan Kasprowicz. Like its artistic counterpart, literary expressionism was intended to reflect subjective human experiences and was characterized by great dynamism and fierceness.

The flagship example of a work created in the expressionist spirit is Scream by Edward Munch, who, in a masterful way, using shapes and colours, captures the eponymous emotion.

Aestheticism is a movement established in Great Britain at the end of the 19th century, which was also strongly developing in France. Its main assumption was to perceive art as an exceptional value, whose superior value is not utility, but beauty (hence the term „art for art's sake”). One of many examples reflecting this type of attitude is The Peacock Room, created by Thomas Jeckylla, and then James McNeill Whistler, which was richly decorated with golden patterns resembling the titular birds. The aesthetic foundations were also represented by a dandy showing exaggerated care for his appearance, who wanted to be perceived as a work of art himself. Oscar Wilde, an Irish writer, was a person who was an exceptional example of aestheticism.