Post Impressionism 101: Cezanne

So we've learned a bit about Monet and we painted like Mary Cassatt this week, now we're bringing out the fruit and flowers and getting down to Cezanne's still life work.


With Cezanne, we move from Impressionism to Post Impressionism to wrap up our week. It can be a bit tricky explaining to kids what exactly the difference of Impressionism and Post Impressionism, and to be honest, I don't really try to do that. Instead, our focus today was on the term "still life" and the use of heavy pastels.

Here's what we did and how we did it:

materials:
oil pastels
paper
bowl of fruit
flowers
table cloth
map of Europe (optional)
examples of Cezanne's work

get to work:
1. Begin with identifying the continent of Europe and showing the children where in Europe France is. (I only begin by showing them the map because this is pretty common in Montessori teaching - "we're learning about art from France today, can you show me where France is?")

2. Display the works of Cezanne and discuss them. What's in the paintings? What's different about his paintings than Monet's or Cassatt's? What do you like/dislike about the painting. Make sure to define "still life" (still life (noun) - A painting or drawing of an arrangement of objects.)

3. Next set up the display, place the table cloth out, have the children arrange the flowers and bowl of fruit, maybe bunch the table cloth a bit. You're done.

4. Now it's time for the children (and you, you should hang out and do this too), to practice drawing the items on the table.

Here's a picture of our simple display today. 

One interpretation of the above display. 

PS
When I can, I love to sit and work with the kids on a project. I find they can learn new techniques from watching me (like how to shade by turning the pastel on its side) and their creative process seems to flow with ease when their teacher/parent is hanging out with them creating something too, rather than asking them about their work (though I try not to nag too much).