PUTNEY — Katy's Great Food in Putney is hosting an art show of student work from fifth graders at The Grammar School through April.
The paintings are based on the work of Giorgio Morandi, an Italian painter and printmaker who specialized in still-life compositions involving everyday jars and bottles.
“This project is one of my favorites because it captures so many elements of deep learning in such a straightforward form,” art teacher Hannah Richards said.
Through the process of making these paintings, students engage in an interdisciplinary study. In addition to explicit painting techniques, such as careful brushwork and different types of paint mixing, students practice observation and complex math skills.
For example, embedded in learning to sight relative measurement and estimate depth of space is the study of fractions; and mixing paint to achieve the subtle grays, browns, and pastels of Morandi's signature style encourages awareness of color theory.
Most importantly, according to Richards, is the way the project “draws forth in students a lovely engagement with the relationship of art history to the work of the present moment, in observing this light on these forms.”
To create the works, fifth-graders sketched several canning jars to practice observing and drawing ellipses, then learned about Giorgio Morandi and looked at several examples of his work. They collectively created a still life from similar objects and set about painting in Morandi's style.
“It's wonderful to see moments of clarity in understanding how an ellipse curves just so, or how a dapple of light makes all the difference, or just to see students seeing deeply,” Richards said.