Familiarizing learners with works of art is a great idea for a number of foreign language projects! We'd like to share a lesson that you can do with your B2 students, which can be a 'springboard' for a series of projects around Art, Music and Poetry.
PART 1: Show your students a print of Vincent Van Gogh's painting “Starry Night”. [Another option for elicitation is to show the interactive animation of this painting by Petros Vrellis http://vimeo.com/36466564 ]
Elicit their impressions:
How does this painting make you feel?
Describe the mood of the painting?
What do you think was going on in the painter's mind and heart?
PART 2: Ask any willing learners to share what they know about the Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh. Then, give the students a brief biography of Van Gogh. You can print the text for them to read silently or you can read it to them as a listening activity.
Vincent Van Gogh, Dutch impressionist painter, lived from 1853 to 1890. While he was living he was considered a social misfit; today we consider him one of the founding fathers of modern art. Close to 1,700 of his works survive today (900 drawings and 800 paintings). He produced many self-portraits in the colors: blue, orange and yellow. He had great capacity for love and expressed his love through his art. When he tried to express it to other people, he was met only with misunderstanding and hostility.Van Gogh painted “Starry Night” during his stay in an Asylum at Saint-Remy in Southern France in 1889.
Afterwards, ask questions (to check their comprehension.)
PART 3: Play the song "Starry, Starry Night" by Don McLean, a homage to the artist and his work and a critique on social elements that may have hastened Van Gogh's suicide. An exceptional video of the song, featuring slides of the artist's best known work is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkvLq0TYiwI and one with lyrics, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxHnRfhDmrk.
"Vincent (Starry, Starry Night)"
Starry, starry night
Paint your palette blue and gray
Look out on a summer's day
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul
Shadows on the hills Sketch the trees and the daffodils
Catch the breeze and the winter chills
In colors on the snowy linen land
Now I understandWhat you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free
They would not listen, they did not know how
Perhaps they'll listen now
Starry, starry night
Flaming flowers that brightly blaze
Swirling clouds in violet hazeReflect in Vincent's eyes of china blue
Colors changing hue
Morning fields of amber grain
Weathered faces lined in pain
Are soothed beneath the artist's loving hand
Now I understandWhat you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free
They would not listen, they did not know how
Perhaps they'll listen now
For they could not love you
But still your love was true
And when no hope was left in sight
On that starry, starry night
You took your life, as lovers often do
But I could've told you Vincent
This world was never meant for
One as beautiful as you
Starry, starry night
Portraits hung in empty halls
Frame-less heads on nameless walls
With eyes that watch the world and can't forget
Like the strangers that you've met
The ragged men in ragged clothes
The silver thorn of bloody rose
Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow
Now I think I know
What you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free
They would not listen, they're not listening still
Perhaps they never will
For further information, read an interpretation of the song's lyrics: http://www.vangoghgallery.com/painting/starrynightlyrics.html
NOTE: The suggested order of the activities within this lesson can be changed at your discretion.
PART 4: Once you have guided your students through this lesson, provide them with names of remarkable world artists, singers and writers and invite them to choose one, to research his/her life and work and present one particular print/recording or excerpt of his/her work/song/piece of writing to share with the rest of the class.
Some suggestions: Singers: Edith Piaf, Maria CallasPoets: Lord Byron, ShakespeareArtists: Dimitris Mytaras, Tsarouchis
Suzanne Antonaros - Lilika Couri, January 2015
