Is there a better combination of exercise, landscape and art?

I first visited the Kröller-Müller museum in the Hoge Veluwe National park when I was an art student in London.  There had been an official college trip organised to Barcelona and Madrid, however I and a few friends simply didn’t have the money to join such an outing.  As an alternative we organised our own cultural excursion.  It was a cut price affair, staying in the cheapest of cheap hostels in Amsterdam and spending, I think, five days visiting the cultural high points of the Netherlands.

Undoubtedly the most surprising to me then, was the visit to the Kröller-Müller museum. An hour east of Amsterdam on the train, followed by twenty minutes on the bus, before entering the park and picking up one of the free white bikes to get around the expansive landscape of the Hoge Veluwe Park.  If I think back to that first visit I remember walking through pine forests and across dazzling sand dunes on a bright, crisp morning in early spring.  It wasn’t what I had expected of the Dutch landscape.  How different it was as a way to approach a museum art collection.  My more familiar routine was to battle through the busy streets of London making use of packed buses and underground trains.

Crossing this windswept Dutch landscape brought us to the destination that our tutors back in London had raved about, the elegant Kröller-Müller museum.  A stylish, modernist building housing the collection put together by Helene Kröller-Müller in the early years of the twentieth century and featuring the work of van Gogh, Mondriaan and many other modern masters.  Behind the museum you have an extensive and ever growing sculpture park and forest.

Little did I know when I made that first visit all those years ago, that within three years I would find myself living in the Netherlands and within biking distance of the park and the museum.  Regularly, as we did yesterday, we take our bikes and head off in a north-east direction.  It is a 20km ride through forests and over heathland.  As I said at the start, I’m yet to discover a better combination of physical exercise, landscape and art. The temporary exhibition for this particular visit being a rarely seen display of early van Gogh drawings.

Click here for more about the Kröller-Müller museum.

Why do I have the feeling that not everyone in the English department is going to approve of this art inspired (clil) writing assignment?

Surreal poetry assignment

This might not be a lesson idea for language purists, but in my defense, I would say that encouraging learners to play with language can be an important aspect of language acquisition. I remember the satisfying buzz I started to get when my mastery of the Dutch language reached a level where I could crack a joke or maybe use a little irony. It makes the using of the language more pleasurable and dare I say it, more fun. So if my surreal poetry assignment takes us into areas of confusing and sometimes conflicting interpretation….well…..that is actually the point of it.

If you would like a little more context and history on the Surrealists, their forerunners the Dadaists and how text and language featured in their work a good place to start is the excellent The Art Story site through the links at the bottom of this post.

So how does the assignment work? I should start by saying that there are plenty of variations on these poetic themes to be found on a variety of websites. The one that I sketch out here is based on an idea from one on a wikihow.com page.

The initial task is to find an existing poem; this could perhaps be one that has been made use of in an English lesson or one that you as a teacher feel is particularly appropriate. Alternatively, allow your pupils to search for a starting point themselves in books or on websites, one that they themselves find interesting…..reading a bit of poetry can never be a bad thing!

Once a suitable poem has been found ask the pupils to identify the nouns, verbs and adjectives in the poem by underlining them with three different coloured pens. Again, this is a useful language exercise for pupils of any level to try to complete.

Then comes the creative part, ask the pupils to replace the existing nouns, verbs and adjectives with new ones of their own choice. It helps if they have already grasped the fact that in the world of the Surrealists not everything is quite as it seems. To make this point clear the paintings of Rene Magritte are my own favourite.

The challenge is to create new poetic lines that are grammatically correct, but have an intriguing and perhaps perplexing connection…..complete randomness though, doesn’t seem to engage the writer or the reader in quite the same way.

 

The examples below illustrate the process:

 

Is the Moon Tired?

By Christina Rossetti (1830-1994)

Is the moon tired? she looks so pale

Within her misty veil:

She scales the sky from east to west,

And takes no rest.

Before the coming of the night

The moon shows papery white;

Before the dawning of the day

She fades away

 

Is the (noun) tired? she looks so (adjective)

Within her misty (noun):

She (verb) the sky from (noun) to (noun),

And takes no (noun).

Before the (verb) of the (noun)

The moon shows (adjective) (noun);

Before the (verb) of the (noun)

She (verb) away.

(Noun – Verb – Adjective)

 

A new version might go:

Is the ink tired? she looks so weak

Within her misty streak:

She swims the sky from pen to book,

And takes no second look.

Before the consuming of the text

The moon shows uncertain perplex;

Before the burning of the hay

She withdraws away.

 

Two possible extensions to this project could be:

1. Ask pupils to try to produce an illustration based on their own new version of the poem
2. Give pupils an example of a surreal artwork (such as one by Magritte) and ask them to write a poem about the painting from scratch. The visual material that the painting offers provides a clear direction and material enough for an interesting exploration and simultaneously requires them to look long and hard at an image from art history.

The story of Dada

The story of Surrealism

Wikihow page used

Studio Day

The fact that I’m sharing the progress of these paintings is an indication that I’m feeling pretty content with the progress.  In the photograph it does all look very graphic, a quality that comes over a little less in the actual work. Inevitably the smaller scale works on paper progress at a higher tempo.

Museums in alternative locations – La Piscine, Roubaix

I’ve visited a fair few museums over the years. The purpose built museums and the museums in spaces that have been transformed into display spaces whilst retaining elements of their previous use. This second category always has an extra level of interest, whether the buildings were, in previous lives factories, power stations, railway stations, shops or churches. But this week I have visited one that displays its heritage to sensational effect.

The ‘La Piscine’ museum in Roubaix, just north of Lille in northern France is housed in a swimming pool that opened its doors for the first time in 1932 before finally closing for the final time in 1985.

The building reopened in its new role as a museum of art and industry in 2001.

The previous life of the building is present throughout with details such as the corroding water tanks in  the space next to the shop, and a stylish, but now disused entrance from the street. But the central space has an undeniable ‘wow effect’. Stretched down the middle is a pool area with sculptures and casts also displayed in this sunken part of the main hall. The decorative tiled edge of the pool is visible throughout and beyond this edge you wander through intimate exhibition spaces housed in the former changing cubicles that surround the pool. Alongside these are the foot baths that bathers would have passed through before reaching the pool area. The original tiling and decorative details have been retained wherever possible, both on the ground floor and the two levels of balconies around the pools.

But the real pièce de résistance are the way the semi-circular stained glass windows at either end of the building illuminate the space and are reflected in the water below, completing the circle as it were. It all works to stunning effect.

 

The collection itself is diverse, a few well-known names, Vlaminck, Dufy, Vuillard, Bonnard and Picasso plates and vases. But essentially it is work by lesser known artists (for me at least), mixed with applied arts in the form of textiles, fashion, glassware and ceramics. It’s variety is its strength and there is much to see that grabs your attention, even with a backdrop that is constantly calling your attention.