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Questions in Art and Art History


Life and education are more about the questions rather than the answers. 

Boys seek their truth; who they are, what inspires them, where they find that "spark." Under the classical ideal of balance, Saint David's program is driven by questions that guide and prompt our boys to look closer, dig deeper, and explore those spaces.

This approach is evident in two signature experiences that recently culminated: the second-grade winter art unit done in collaboration with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the eighth-grade Nightingale-Bamford Lectures on Art. 

"What do you see?" "What are you wondering about?" asked three second grade "docents" this morning as they stood in front of Alex Katz's Blue Umbrella during a culminating event for parents and faculty at the Guggenheim Museum, which also included an exhibit of the boys' original artworks in the Museum's Rotunda. The boys this morning, confident and well prepared, were asking us the same questions posed to them during this study--a three-month collaboration that occurred at the Museum and in our school's art studios under the guidance of a museum educator and the boys' Saint David's art teachers. 

Engaged with guiding questions during their sessions, the boys were invited to look closely and also to imagine freely. Inspired by their experiences analyzing Paul Gauguin, Henri Rosseau, Pablo Picasso, Alex Katz, and the iconic spiraling structure of the museum itself, they were then tasked with using their learning to create their own collages, paintings, drawings and construction. 

When our eighth-grade finalists took the stage for their NBS Lectures on Art last week, covering some classic and some unconventional masterworks by Hieronymus Bosch, Sandro Botticelli, Raphael, Peter Paul Rubens, Artemisia Gentileschi, Thomas Cole and Frida Kahlo, it may have seemed like they were presenting "the answers." Upon closer look, it becomes clear that they were delving deep into questions. Questions about art's purpose and meaning; about the various elements that go into a masterwork of art and how these, taken together, convey a message, feeling, or theme. 

Through this exercise, the boys are learning not solely how to research a piece of artwork, but also how to consider it, question it, analyze it. Why was the artwork created? What might its iconography signify? How does it convey balance and why might that be? How does the message of the piece align with the background of the artist and the historical context during the time it was created?

These two units exemplify Saint David's educational philosophy across all disciplines. Their success owes much to the pedagogical expertise of our school's teaching teams: Bernard Adnet, Jenna Boccella, Rachel da Silva, and Melanie Fidler for the Guggenheim unit; and Jenna Boccella, Drew Burton, and Catherine Milligan for NBS. 

The Guggenheim and NBS signature experiences leverage the value we place on our boys being well-rounded, which enables them to use multiple entry points and pathways to discover who they are and what they love--all while they learn. 

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