Who painted this??
 

I'm using this image for a school project - got it in poster form, and it had no written info whatsoever. Does anyone know who painted it?

It's a cool project: I cut up the poster into 180 equal sized pieces, laminate them, shuffle them like a deck of cards, and distribute them to my 5 art classes - 180 students (high school). Students must reproduce their "piece" on a paper 9 times as large (in area) , using colored pencils - and having no clue as to what the image will be - until it is finally put together. Now it's together - and it is huge, about 7 X 10 feet!

It's going in a local art show and I would love to - need to - include info about the original. Help!!

Sorry I can't help you with the name of the artist, but I have to ask if there is a place I can go to online to see the final project? It sounds really interesting.

How Sweet to do Nothing.
 

Dolce Far Niente, by John Godward.

Name: John William Godward
Born: London, England
9 August 1861
Died: London, England
13 December 1922

You can find more about him at http://www.mezzo-mondo.com/arts/mm/godward/godward.html

Hope it helps.

A few of his paintings...

I was guessing Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912), whose work is very similar.

John C.

THANK YOU so much Claudemir. Is that the translation of the painting's title that you gave?..."How Sweet to do Nothing"?

And Janel, you are in luck!! I just took this photo, so here it is. It's gigantic - about 7 X 10 feet. Students are right now coming in to see it for the first time. They are so delighted with their work - as they should be. They worked hard - I pushed them hard, many were hesitant to go dark enough....I have reminded them that the quality of this piece represents the collective average of all the students - not just the best ones. Over 1800 "adolescent hours" went into it. I'm proud of them.

And these are all ART 1 students...(!)

To give you some sense of scale:

Wow! My high school Art1 teacher got fired for being drunk on the job. I would have loved to have you as a teacher.

Jean

That's right David!
It's a very common expression in Italian.

And that's a great and big project!

What a great teaching tool. You could spend weeks teaching about seeing, values, perspective, chroma and so much more just from this one project. Fabulous idea and results. You and your students justly deserve a rousing round of applause! :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

What a great art project. As a child, I loved to draw and I used to always get A's in art. In high school, I excitedly started my first art class. But, the teacher ruined me for good. After some basics of color wheel and mixing paints, we were told to spend the class session painting a landscape. Uhhhh - but there was none to view nor were we given any reference material. We had to just make it up from our head. I froze and spent the whole class session going deeper and deeper into withdrawal, fighting back tears and swore I'd never take another art class in my life. I didn't. I'm sure I would have done much better with you as a teacher. :)

What a neat project--
 

And it turned out so beautifully!

A couple of years ago, as an experiment, I taught my daughter and a couple of her friends a little art class. One of the projects they did was a little acrylic painting where the reference image had been cut up into (i think 12) numbered squares and they painted each square into that numbered square on a gridded piece of canvassette (in random order --except that the one piece that would identify the subject matter was reserved for last--so that they wouldn't know what the overall picture was). The resulting paintings were quite nice, and I think far better than they would have been had the girls known the subject matter. That lack of 'knowledge' forced a real examination of the reference and removed any preconceived notions or symbolic representation.

What a neat idea to break up the pieces and divvy them up among so many different students -- they've done an outstanding job! I've already called my daughter in to show her this collaborative piece... and will mention it to her friends as well.

It's just so impressive! Your students must be thrilled!

Thank you all for your positive feedback. The students are justly proud of what they have accomplished - and I'm proud of them.

Exactly right Terri. This is such a great project for many reasons. As you indicated, most of the little pieces were very abstract - some, of course, had an idea of what they were working on - the plant pieces were pretty obvious...most students who got the "fur pieces" didn't know what they were drawing. So it forced them (and I forced them) to focus only on value (primarily), proportion (of course) as well as color - and edges. If I didn't push them, 99% of their pieces would have been WAY too light. That was their overall tendency.

I also hope that it drives home, to some of them at least, that in order to do a piece that is really grand, beautiful, lush....it requires a LOT of work, a lot of patience. Hopefully some of them will now be more willing to put in the extra time, extra hours on a foot or a face, a lotus blossom or a bit of fur to reach the goal, the big "payoff," - and thus enjoy the accolades.

This piece of course is extreme. 1800 student hours! I told them that if they wanted to be paid minimum wage for their efforts, we would have to charge more than $12,000 for this piece. So I told them that if I can sell it for that amount, I'll have the buyer make out the check to me.... and then we'll have a pizza party when they return from Spring Break!! :cool:

David--

Good to hear from you.

This is a great, great, great, great, great project for art students! I echo the sentiments above--I wish you'd been my teacher.

Best--TE