New Ideas,

New Medias
• The invention of photography in the
nineteenth century made a tremendous
impact on the visual arts that continues to
the present.
• The impressionists developed a painterly style,creating
images that expressed mood without great detail.

• The cubists moved in another direction with greater

abstraction, using the real visual world only as a starting
point and manipulating the concept of reality in art.

• The fauvists rejected the notion of local or realistic

color and painted in
ways that the camera could not duplicate.
• Later, other artists began using photographic
images as reference material for their drawings,
paintings, prints,and sculptures. Instead of
rejecting the photographic image, some artists
began to use the camera to assist them.
• Photographers found ways to distort
images, alter colors at will, print double
or triple images, and generally be as
expressive as painters.
• From the beginning days of photography, we
have moved ahead to the technologies of
cinema, video, and computer-generated images.
Each of these technologies has become an
artistic medium, and as with photography, new
modes of making art have come into being.
• The technology of computer-generated images
is developing at a rapid rate. Personal-computer
users can purchase programs for “drawing” and
“painting” on the computer.
• In the commercial art fields, computer art is well
established. Many of the images in television
advertising are computer generated, as are an
increasing number of movies. The tremendous
popularity of commercial movies such as Jurassic
Park, Titanic, and Lord of the Rings can be
attributed largely to the amazing capabilities of
computer-generated animation.
• Virtually every innovation in
technology makes an impact in the
art area as artists appropriate new
media to create images previously
not feasible.
• Artists have created light shows, usingcolored
beams of laser light on a large scale at night, often
in conjunction with architectural forms. Others,
perhaps after a visit to Las Vegas, have made
sculpture from neon tubing of different colors and
sizes. An entire range of kinetic sculpture has been
developed, including sculptures
• During the second half of the twentieth century, we
witnessed the initiation of conceptual art, environmental
art, and performance art. All these new ideas have resulted
in an expansion of acceptable materials for art, such as the
3-mile-long work The Gates, Central Park, New York City,
1979–2005, created by Christo and Jeanne-Claude in New
York City’s Central Park.
Like the artists’ other notable
works, Running Fence,
Surrounded Islands, and
Umbrellas, The Gates crossed
categories of conceptual art,
environmental art, performance
art, landscape design, and
sculpture.
• Some artists have taken that most
basic and ancient of
environments, the earth itself, as
an art medium. One artist, Walter
De Maria, chose a flat, semiarid
basin in New Mexico to create
the environmental work known as
Lightning Field.
Sandy Skoglund, who creates unusual settings in rooms. In one
piece she painted the entire room—walls, ceiling, and floor—with a
flat gray paint. A small table, two chairs, refrigerator, and all other
items in the room are painted the same gray. An elderly couple (living
models, not sculptures) are posed in the room, the man sitting on a
chair and the woman in front of the open refrigerator door; both are
dressed completely in the same flat gray, making their skin tones
stand out in contrast. Also in the room are many bright yellow green
cats (sculptures), each in a different pose.
• Children are aware of many of these
art forms in their everyday lives.
Films, videos, computer-generated
images in television ads, and for
many, music videos are commonly
seen.
New Media in
the Classroom
Cindy Sherman is an artist
who dresses herself in
different costumes, often
complete with wigs, makeup,
glasses, and so on, that
transform her apparently into
a different person.
 Creating a Gallery of Self-Portraits
• With the use of a camera, children in
school classrooms can identify
characters they would like to
represent, assemble the necessary
clothes, select the settings, and take
the pictures.
 Creating a Gallery of Self-Portraits

• Ask children to collect photographs of

interesting faces that they see in
magazines and newspapers. Discuss
the moods and feelings the faces
convey.
 Responding to Contemporary Art
• The history of art is replete with examples of
artists who developed new ideas, styles, and
uses of media with little recognition by their
contemporaries. Sometimes decades or even
centuries pass before the artists’
contributions are recognized.
 Responding to Contemporary Art
• Ask students to study the range of newer art media
used by several contemporary artists, Christo and
Jeanne-Claude, and others. Have them analyze
specific works and try to interpret their meanings.
Then, ask them to speculate about which of the
artists are most likely to be recognized for their
contribu_x0002_tions in 30, 50, or 100 years and
why.
 Art and Nature
• Andy Goldsworthy is a Scottish artist
who works exclusively with materials
from the natural environment: stone,
wood, dirt, sand, leaves, flowers,
feathers, ice, snow, and other objects in
nature.
 Art and Nature
• His photographs of the works are the only record of
their existence. Goldsworthy speaks little about the
meaning of his art. He has said, “I have
be_x0002_come aware of how nature is in a state of
change, and that change is the key to understanding.
I want my art to be sensitive and alert to changes in
material, season and weather.”
 Art and Nature
• Look for leaves with different colors caused by the
seasonal changes. Arrange leaves from the same type
of tree according to color changes, such as light
yellow, yellow, yellow green, green, dark green.
Clear a path on the ground, and create a line of
leaves that change colors gradually and subtly from
one extreme to the other. Make the line several
inches wide in a curved or zigzag direction
 Art and Nature
• Find an area with sand. Using a tool from nature,
such as a stick or rock, make a series of wavy lines
in the sand to see how it responds. Is it too dry to
hold its shape? Is water available to wet the sand?
Create shapes or patterns using repetitions of marks
with the natural tools at your disposal.
 Art and Nature

• Find a location with leaves, rocks, and

water. Select and arrange leaves
according to colors, and cover one or
more rocks with leaves, using the water
to hold the leaves in place.
 Art and Nature
• Find a location with lots of small, smooth
rocks, like a creek bed or gravel pit. Collect a
large number of rocks, and separate them
according to sizes and colors. Then, create a
series of concentric circles using variations
of rock size and color.
 Art and Nature

• Remember to bring cameras to

the sites, and record your
efforts and your finished works
of art.
 Polaroid Photography as an Art Medium
• Prominent artist David Hockney has explored the
Polaroid camera as a tool for making art. He is also
interested in the cubism of Picasso and Georges
Braque, in which multiple views of the same subject
are presented in a single painting, producing
distortions but also revealing more information than is
possible with only one view
 Polaroid Photography as an Art Medium
• Ask children to select a scene that they like. Working
in teams according to how many cameras you have or
by taking turns with one camera, have the children take
pictures of the selected subject from different points of
view. When all the pictures are completed, ask the
children to select the ones that are most interesting
and best express what they feel about the subject.
 Polaroid Photography as an Art Medium
• When you display the Polaroid “collages,” you might
include the work of Hockney, along with some
information about his life and work. You might even
relate the work to the idea of cubism. Statements by
the children about what they were trying to capture and
communicate in the pho_x0002_tographs would add
greatly to the display
 Polaroid Photography as an Art Medium
• Working in a similar way, the children might
take pictures of a person and assemble a
portrait. They might add drawings or paintings
of the person to achieve another dimension of
insight and interest.
 Art from Everything

• This attitude has changed recently to

allow virtually any (safe) materials
to be used in the creation of works
of art.
 Art from Everything
• Ask children to collect many items that they no longer
want or need.

• Supplement what they bring with a trip to a local

surplus warehouse, yard sales, or thrift store, and
purchase (or ask for the do_x0002_nation of )
interesting items. Collect wood scraps from the high-
school wood shop, from the local lumberyard, or
• from parents who do woodwork.
 Art from Everything
• Tell the children they are going to work together to
make a sculpture out of the collected materials.

• Then they can begin selecting objects nd try them

together to see if they “work” in interesting ways. The
children might need to decide what colors will be best
for expressing the subject they have chosen.
 Art from Everything
• Children might need a hammer and nails, good-quality
glue, screws and a screwdriver, clamps, and whatever
other means they can devise. Decide in advance if the
sculpture will actually have working parts. When the
sculpture is assembled and stabilized so it will not fall
apart, decide what colors are needed for the final
painting.
 Fax Friendships
• Artist David Hockney sent an entire mural by fax from
California to the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis

• After Hockney printed out the total image, which

required many sheets of paper, he transmitted each
sheet across the country by fax. The separate sheets
were then assembled on a huge wall in the Art Center,
creating the mural.
 Fax Friendships
• Explain that students will work in groups to create
messages in the form of graphic art that they will send
to selected potential friends in another location. Find a
willing recipient of student art messages by fax.

• Remind students that in order to be transmitted, their

work must be of high quality.
 Copy Technology
• Most schools have photocopy machines, and
many have access to color copy machines.

• Using the regular copy machine, children can

make drawings that can be duplicated and
colored or painted on in different ways without
destroying the original.
 Copy Technology
• The children can enlarge or reduce the drawing
and can cut and paste together several versions

• As children experiment with the copy machine,

they can learn about the fluency afforded
artists with modern technology.
 Copy Technology
• Good-quality art reproductions can be made
with the color copier. Teachers can make color
copies to display in the art room, to place in
folders for group work, or to use in any types
of learning activities as children study and
understand works of art.
 Copy Technology

• Artists are beginning to use high-end digital

Giclée printers as another addition to
printmaking technology. When the artist has
created the final drawing, watercolor, or print,
it can be duplicated on the machine for
whatever edition is wanted.
Thank you