History

Time Travel

Assume you have been given the ability to travel back in time, and you are about to set off on a trip to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The purpose of your trip is to visit artists in their studios and view firsthand the creation of some of their paintings and sculpture.

In your time travels, you will collect information on five different styles of nineteenth- and twentieth-century art, as represented by one artist from each style. Before you set out, decide which specific styles you would like to explore.

Select one style from each of the five categories listed below:

  • Late Nineteenth Century: Impressionism or Post Impressionism
  • Early Twentieth Century: Fauvism, Expressionism, or Futurism
  • Cubism: Analytic or Synthetic
  • Post-World War I Art: Dada or Surrealism
  • Post-World War II Art: Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism, or Pop Art

For each of your five selected styles, identify one artist who represents that style whose studio you will explore in your time travels. In your visits to each artists studio, plan to identify one work of art that best exemplifies the artists style.

When you return from your time travels, prepare a report that includes the following information for each of your five representative works of art:

  1. A photograph of the object
  2. Identifying information: 
    1. Name of the artist
    2. Title of the work
    3. Date of the work
    4. Medium/materials used to create the work
  3. Identify the style of the work of art. Then, write a paragraph of 4-6 sentences that: 
    1. Describes the visual characteristics that makes the object representative of its style
    2. Places the work within its social and historical context and explains why it is culturally significant

Finally, in a well-developed paragraph of 6-8 sentences, summarize what you have learned from your time travels, highlighting key similarities and distinctions between the artists you visited and their representative works of art.

Your report should conclude with an explanation about which style you find most interesting and why.

Offer a citation of your sources for each image and the information provided as appropriate