Goals

These activities help to satisfy the following National and Illinois State Standards.

• To critically engage with representations of the body;
• To explore the concepts of the Gothic body, horror, and visual culture;
• To practice a visual art vocabulary by comparing and contrasting images;
• To identify, define, and practice new vocabulary words, especially adjectives;
• To use a computer to search for images of appropriate size and resolution;
• To use online resources to expand ideas and make connections;
• To analyze the sub-genre of self-portraiture and create a self-portrait;
• To consider the roles of memory and violence in artistic production;
• To argue multiple perspectives on the place of violent imagery in visual culture;
• To explore the visual elements of an artwork through creative writing;
• To compare and contrast how works of art and literature treat the same theme.

State Learning Goals

These activities help to satisfy the following National and Illinois State Standards.

• 1C: Students can…comprehend a broad range of reading materials.
• 2A: Students can…understand how literary elements and techniques are used to convey meaning.
• 2B: Students can…read and interpret a variety of literary works.
• 3B: Students can…compose well-organized and coherent writing for specific purposes and audiences.
• 4A: Students can…listen effectively in formal and informal situations.
• 4B: Students can…speak effectively using language appropriate to the situation and audience.
• 5C: Students can…apply acquired information, concepts and ideas to communicate in a variety of formats.
• 25A: Students can…understand the sensory elements, organizational principles and expressive qualities of the arts.
• 25B: Students can…understand the similarities, distinctions and connections in and among the arts.
• 26A: Students can…apply skills and knowledge necessary to create and perform in one or more of the arts.
• 27A: Students can…analyze how the arts function in history, society and everyday life.
• 27B: Students can…understand how the arts shape and reflect history, society and everyday life.

Full Goal Listings

• Illinois Learning Standards (Home)
• Illinois Learning Standards (English Language Arts)
• Illinois Learning Standards (Fine Arts)

Essential Questions

• What role do representations of the body play in your everyday life?
• How does your visual culture shape the ways that you see your own body?
• What choices do you make when you create a visual representation of your body?
• What occurs when you confront violent representations of the body?
• How do you think about the relationship between your body and your self?
• How does your body shape the ways that you experience the world?

Self-Portraiture and Hollywood Movie Monsters

Goals

Students will explore the concept of horror in art and cinema; practice using a visual art vocabulary to compare and contrast images with similar themes; discuss the genre of portraiture and its sub-genre, self-portraiture; use a computer to search for, download, save, and print digital images of appropriate size and resolution; create a monster inspired self-portrait.

Materials

Computer with Internet connection and audio, digital image projector, access to classroom computer (or computer lab) with Internet connection and printer(s), art supplies (white drawing paper, black construction paper for support, crayons/colored pencils/markers, glue sticks)

Definitions

Horror (film genre) http://www.filmsite.org/horrorfilms.html

Portrait http://www.tate.org.uk/collections/glossary/definition.jsp?entryId=227

Procedure

1. Introduce the concept of horror and the genre of horror movies. Ask students to name several Hollywood movie monsters. Make a list of the monsters. Ask students to describe what the monsters’ bodies look like using horrific adjectives. Questions: What makes the creatures monsters? What makes their bodies frightening or fascinating?
2. Listen and view an excerpt from Sarah Burns’ lecture, “Corruptible Flesh: Art and Necrophilia in Chicago.” The excerpt compares Ivan Albright’s painted bodies with famous, Hollywood movie monsters. Burns describes the emergence of horror films in the 1930s, and she provides evidence for how the horror genre influenced the reception of Albright’s work. Ask students to listen for a list of visual elements that characterize horror movies. Ask students to look for the contrast between light and shadow in the images. Multimedia Link: http://chfmedia.net/classroom/sarah-burns/english/1-2.html
3. Have students consider the relationship between horror movies and Albright’s paintings. Questions: In what ways do the bodies of Frankenstein’s monster or Dracula relate to Albright’s art? How did viewing horror movies change the ways that critics and audiences responded to Albright’s art? How does viewing horror movies change the ways that we see our own bodies?
4. Define the genre of portraiture and its sub-genre, self-portraiture. Questions: What does a portrait tell us about a person? Why would an artist make a self-portrait? What decisions does an artist make when creating a self-portrait?
5. Compare and contrast an image of Boris Karloff as The Monster in James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931) with Ivan Albright’s Self-Portrait (1934). Image Link: http://chfmedia.net/classroom/sarah-burns/english/1-5.html
6. Sarah Burns states that Albright might have been influenced by the image of Boris Karloff as The Monster, but she also allows that the resemblance might be coincidental. Have students debate this point. Listen and view a video about the Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro who directed such monster movies as Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), Hellboy (2004), Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008), and Cronos (1993). Del Toro keeps elaborate journals in which he documents his ideas in words and images. Ask students to look for del Toro’s self-portrait. Ask students to listen for Daniel Zalewski’s commentary on what might have inspired del Toro to create the Pale Man monster.
7. Ask students to describe del Toro’s self-portrait. What bodily transformation inspired his self-portrait? Ask students to describe the Pale Man monster. Compare and contrast del Toro’s self-portrait and the Pale Man monster. What is frightening or fascinating about the Pale Man monster’s face and body?
8. Have students create self-portraits based on images of Hollywood movie monsters. Ask students to create a list of keywords that they will use to do an online image search. Discuss image size and resolution requirements. Demonstrate how to find, save, download, and print digital images. Once students have printed their images, have them use crayons, markers, or colored pencils to draw self-portraits. Mount the self-portraits and source images side-by-side on sheets of black construction paper for discussion and display.

Multimedia Links

Video: Monsters in the Making (The New Yorker magazine, January 31, 2011) http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/01/zalewski-guillermo-del-toro.html

“The Relationship of the Body to the Self”: Reflections on The Picture of Dorian Gray

Goals

Students will explore the concepts of the body and the self; discuss the relationship of the body to the self; explore the idea of internal and external transformation; use the terms character, plot, and tone to consider the literary qualities of artworks; discuss transformation as a plot device in movie thrillers; use a computer to view images of artworks and read related short stories; write a creative response to a visual work; watch a music video and connect the ideas of internal and external transformation across media; read a literary passage and compare it to an artwork of the same theme.

Body/Self: Many different understandings of the body and the self, and their relationship, have been explored throughout history and the world. Generally the term ‘body’ denotes the physical, material individual, and the term ‘self’ describes the thinking, self-reflective individual. Since the Enlightenment, Western thought has traditionally defined the body in opposition to the mind. This dualism has privileged the mind or thinking subject over the body or non-thinking object. The mind/body and subject/object dualisms have also been associated with gender (see Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s entry Feminists Perspectives on Self http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-self/). Modern artists and theorists have challenged these dualisms; for example, Amelia Jones developed the concept of the ‘body/self’ to describe artistic strategies that reclaim the body as material for expressing one’s subjectivity (see Body Art/Performing the Subject by Amelia Jones, 1998).

Materials

Computer with Internet connection and audio, digital image projector, access to classroom computers (or computer lab) with Internet connection, lined composition paper, pens/pencils, classroom set of Oscar Wilde’s The Portrait of Dorian Gray (1890) (or digital/print passage)

Procedure

1. Project a digital image of Ivan Albright’s Picture of Dorian Gray (1944) for students to view. Ask students to use their eyes to survey the entire image before focusing in on Dorian’s body. Pose questions about the painting’s color palette, light source, and setting.
2. Define the concepts of the body and the self. Questions: What colors did Albright use to paint Dorian’s body? Does his skin look healthy or sickly? Does he look old or young? Does he look alive, dead, or undead? What does Dorian’s body suggest about his self? What is his facial expression? Where is he looking? What do you see in Dorian’s eyes? How does the artist want us to react to Dorian’s body and self? What occurs when we look at him?
3. Have students use computers to visit the Tate Britain’s website in preparation for writing about Ivan Albright’s Picture of Dorian Gray (1944). Visitors to the Tate Britain’s exhibition “Gothic Nightmares” (February 15-May 1, 2006) were asked to write movie scenarios about several paintings. Fourteen scenarios are accessible online. Ask students to read several scenarios. Discuss how visitors used visual elements from the artworks in their writing. Using the Tate Britain’s prompt, have students write their own movie scenarios about Dorian Gray.
4. Listen and view an excerpt from Sarah Burns’ lecture, “Corruptible Flesh: Art and Necrophilia in Chicago,” in which Burns recounts the plot of Oscar Wilde’s The Portrait of Dorian Gray (1890). Burns also relates Albright’s involvement in the production of a Hollywood movie based on Wilde’s novel. Multimedia Link: http://chfmedia.net/classroom/sarah-burns/english/2-4.html
5. Have students describe Dorian’s transformation(s). Questions: How did Dorian look at the beginning of Oscar Wilde’s story? What happened to Dorian’s body and self as the plot advanced? What happened to his self-portrait? What occurred when Dorian’s portrait changed? How did the portrait change? What does the story tell us about the relationship of the body to the self? What does the story tell us about internal and external transformation? Why do stories of bodily or monstrous transformations make entertaining movies?
6. Listen and view Michael Jackson’s music video “Thriller” (1982). Ask students to watch for grotesque bodies and scenes of transformation. Ask students to listen for horror movie sound effects and song lyrics that describe how ‘thrillers’ frighten us. Questions: What makes for a good movie thriller? What is the plot of the music video? Who are the main characters? How does the first scene unfold? How does the audience react to the monster movie? What is the tone of the video? What sounds or images frighten? What sounds or images fascinate? What causes Michael Jackson’s transformations in the horror film and in the music video? What occurs when his body transforms? Why is the female character frightened by him? How does the music video end? What is the final close-up? What does the close-up suggest about Michael Jackson’s body and self?
7. Have students read a short passage from Oscar Wilde’s The Portrait of Dorian Gray (1890) that explores the connection between Dorian’s painted body and human self. Discuss Wilde’s diction and tone when describing the painting and Dorian. Compare and contrast how the theme of transformation is treated differently by Albright and Wilde. Which account is more compelling? Why? Does reading a portion of Wilde’s book change the way that we look at Albright’s painting?

Multimedia Links

Your Gothic Nightmares (Tate Britain, image gallery and horror movie scenarios based on the “Gothic Nightmares” exhibition) http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/gothicnightmares/yours/

Music video by Michael Jackson performing “Thriller” (1982) (YouTube) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOnqjkJTMaA

Oscar Wilde’s The Portrait of Dorian Gray (University of Virginia Library, Electronic Text Center) http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/WilDori.html