2nd Grade Art: Kinds of Pictures: Landscapes

Lessons taken from What Your Second Grader Needs to Know and the Core Knowledge Teacher Handbook
The Big Idea: like the portrait and the still life, the landscape is another important genre of art.

Kinds of Pictures: Landscapes Domain Vocabulary

Anthropomorphize: To give human qualities to something nonhuman
Genre: A category of art (landscape, portraiture, still life, etc.)
Genre Painting: A composition that depicts everyday life
Kimono: A loose Japanese robe with a wide sash, worn as an outer garment
Landscape: An image depicting a land scene
Oxbow: A U-shaped collar placed around an ox’s neck when it is hitched to a plow; also applied to bends in a river that curve back on
themselves to form a large loop
Pastoral: A rural scene
Patron: In the visual arts, one who commissions and/or supports an artist’s work. Traditionally, patrons came from the wealthy and elite
classes of royalty, aristocracy, and Catholic church officials
Scape: A view of scenery of any kind
Seascape: An image of a body of water (can include ships or boats)
Urbanscape: An image of the urban environment

What Students Need to Learn:

1. Recognize as landscapes and discuss; Cole’s Mt Holyoke, El Greco’s View of Toledo, Rousseau’s, Virgin Forest, van Gogh’s Starry
Night.

At a Glance The most important ideas for students are:

1. Genres are categories of art. Portraits, still lines, and landscapes are important genres.
2. Landscapes are images that describe the outdoors.
3. Landscapes can include rural or urban images.
4. Seascapes area subgenre of landscape painting.
5. Artists produce landscapes in a variety of styles.
6. Landscape painting in the west has roots in ancient times and artists still practice it today.
7. Chinese and Japanese artists have painted pen and ink landscapes on silk and paper for centuries.
8. Landscapes can reflect information about the physical environment, as well as the times in which the artists painted them.

Thinking
# Method Objectives Higher Order Questioning Materials
Framework
 Pre-unit 1 Discussion, Students will be introduced to Thomas Cole’s The Q. Compare the left half and Art posters Knowledge,
Activity Oxbow and go outside to make some sketches of the the right half of the painting. The Oxbow Patterns
landscape, en plein air. Modeling
Q. Which half of the painting Clipboards, Creativity
Notice he paints himself small at the bottom of the would you rather visit? paper and
painting. Why? pencils

Lesson Ideas:
1. Go outside and make quick sketches for a scene
and then expand into a final drawing or painting
later in the classroom.
2. Describe challenges and advantages in working
outdoors.
3. Show modern day plein air artists and their
painting equipment.
2 Demonstration Students will be introduced to El Greco’s View of Q. How does El Greco show Prints of El Knowledge
Class Toledo and make a drawing to express a strong strong emotion in his Greco’s Modeling
Discussion, feeling of the place. painting? View of Patterns
Activity Toledo Creativity
Lesson Ideas: A. What shapes and colors
1. El Greco used a spirited color and shape to did you use to show a strong Paper,
describe a strong feeling about Toledo. emotion? pencil,
2. Think of a place that gives a strong feeling of paints
happiness.
3. Make a drawing using color and shape to
convey that strong emotion in a picture of that
‘happy place’.
4. Share the colors and shapes they chose to
describe emotion.
3 Demonstration Students will be introduced to Henri Rousseau’s Q. Does this painting look Art poster Knowledge
Activity Virgin Forest at Sunset, and other Rousseau’s realistic or an imaginary Henri Modeling
paintings especially with tigers. place? Rousseau’s Patterns
Cross Curriculum Link: 2nd graders study India and Virgin Creativity
China where tigers are a common image in these Forest at
cultures. Sunset.
 (Optional as time allows) Lesson Ideas:
1. Read children’s picture book about Rousseau
2. Draw a picture of a tiger
3. Use silk flowers and leaves to draw the
background jungle plants to make an
imaginative landscape around the tiger.
4. Outline with marker and color in with oil pastel.

4 Demonstration Students will be introduced to Vincent van Gogh’s Q. Does the sky in the Art posters Knowledge
Class Starry Night and make a picture inspired by Starry painting look like the sky Vincent van Modeling
Discussion, Night. you see at night? Gogh’s Patterns
Activity Starry Night Creativity
(Optional as time allows) Lesson Ideas: Q. Could this painting be
1. Create own landscape inspired by Starry Night called Peaceful Night instead Watercolor
(Snowman Starry Night oil pastel watercolor of Starry Night? paper, oil
picture with the spirals for wind in the pastels, blue
background can work well.) Q. How would you describe watercolor
the lines used in van Gogh’s
painting?
4 Demonstration Students will be shown landscapes art and photos of Q. What did you draw Landscapes Knowledge
Class our neck of the woods and draw landscapes. differently when you made art and Modeling
Discussion, your opposite drawing? photos of Patterns
Activity Lesson Ideas: our neck of Creativity
1. Draw landscape picture of where they live the woods.
(urban or rural, farm, ranch, mtns, lake, trees,
plants, houses) Paper,
2. Next, will draw a second picture that reflects pencils and
the opposite of where they live. (i.e. If they live colors
in the city, next draw the countryside.)

5 Demonstration Students will be shown photos of Chinese mountains Q. What does the Chinese Photos of Knowledge
Class and some misty mountain landscape paintings. topography look like? Chinese Modeling
Discussion, nd
Cross Curriculum Link: 2 graders study China so this mountains Patterns
Activity is a good time to introduce Chinese landscape art. Q. What do the photos & and some Creativity
artworks describing the area old misty
(Optional as time allows) Lesson Ideas: and locations indicate about mountain
 1. Be introduced to the Chinese Tao idea about how the humans interacted landscape
harmony with nature and the Chinese scroll with the environment? paintings.
painting landscapes were made to be a little
vacation for the mind. Q. What did they study about
2. Make a misty mountain landscape picture China that appeared in their
with torn paper, chalk pastels and tissue. picture collage of the misty
3. (If time allows, students can add a mountains?
foreground collage of bamboo stalks,
leaves, and panda bears over their misty
mountains background)
Demonstration Students will be shown The Oxbow, View of Toledo, Q. What are some of the Art posters Knowledge
Class Virgin Forest at Sunset, & Starry Night, write about different kinds of lines do of The Modeling
Discussion, one or more and match music to the scene. you see in each of the Oxbow, Patterns
Activity Cross Curriculum Link: 2nd graders Music Section III. landscapes? View of Creativity
Toledo,
Lesson Ideas: Q. What songs or music they Virgin
1. Point out the different kinds of lines used to think would match each Forest at
give us the sense of landscape. picture? Sunset, &
2. Be given four index cards or post it notes each. Starry
3. Each write a description of each of the four Night,
paintings (or their one favorite) in complete
sentences and hang them by the painting. Art posters
4. Be asked what songs or music they think would of the
match each picture. For example, a more serene paintings
landscape might have a calm, quiet song, etc. introduced
in this unit.

Recordings
of Grade 2
music that
fits the
landscapes
Demonstration Students can make a landscape of their own, real or Q. What mood and feeling Knowledge
Class imaginary. do you want your picture to Modeling
Discussion, have? Patterns
Activity Lesson Ideas: Creativity
1. Decide if it’ll be realistic or imaginary. Think of weather and time of
2. Decide what materials to make it. day, and the light. Will it be
3. Think of mood and feeling they want picture to dark and stormy, or bright
have. and sunny and peaceful? Or
4. Think of weather and time of day, and the light. something else?
Will it be dark and stormy, or bright and sunny
and peaceful? Or something else?
5. Will they put people or animals in their
landscape?