Online Resources for
Interpreting ART
Craig Roland
Teaching students to interpret
works of art and visual culture is an important aim of
contemporary art education
practice. The following sites offer
useful interdisciplinary resources
that can assist you and your students in achieving this goal.
The Warhol: Resources & Lessons
edu.warhol.org
This site includes a variety of learning resources focusing on the life
and work of Andy Warhol. In addition to lesson plans, art activities,
and images of Warhol’s work, there
are downloadable Power Point presentations and interactive features
that explore Warhol’s penchant for
collecting and silkscreen printing.
Several of the lessons, written for
all grade levels, involve students
in critical analysis and in exploring
how artists interpret source materials to comment on current events
and politics.
Comparing and Contrasting
www.renaissanceconnection.org/
lesson_language_compare.html
Art critics and historians often use
comparisons to study and interpret
works of art. In this lesson plan, one
of several, middle school students
use the compare and contrast strategy to interpret the meaning of two
works of art from the Renaissance.
Drawing Political Cartoons
artsedge.kennedy-center.org/
content/2100
In this lesson plan, high school students analyze visual and language
clues to determine the meaning of
contemporary and historical politi-
30 SchoolArts Jannuary 2007
cal cartoons and then create their
own political cartoons based on
current events. Supporting materials, available as PDF files, include a
rubric and a vocabulary list.
Learning Whitney
whitney.org/learning
This site includes learning resources
for teachers, kids, and teens that use
the Whitney Museum’s collection of
twentieth and twenty-first century
art. There’s a gallery of images, a
tool for creating your own online
collections of Whitney images, a
timeline, lesson plans and art-making activities, and a “How-To” section that offers guidelines and strategies for encouraging students to
analyze and interpret works of art.
The Emperor Napoleon
www.nga.gov/kids/napoleon
In this interactive feature on
NGAkids, young students discover
how Jacques-Louis David used symbols in his painting of Napoleon to
influence viewers’ opinions of the
emperor. They are then encouraged
to do the same by painting a portrait
of a friend, supposedly running for
school president, that includes clues
about his or her personality, interests, and talents.
George Washington
www.georgewashington.si.edu/
portrait
This site allows middle and high
school students to explore the Lans-downe portrait of George Washington, painted by Gilbert Stuart, from
three different vantage points: the
symbolic, the biographic, and the
artistic. Each perspective highlights
an element in the portrait and provides unique information and a distinct interpretation. There is also an
interactive site for younger students,
which invites them to search for
clues in the portrait that will help
solve a make-believe mystery.
Telling Stories in Art
www.getty.edu/education/for_
teachers/curricula/stories
In these lessons, middle and high
school students explore how artists
use color, line, gesture, composition,
and symbolism to tell stories. Students interpret and create their own
narratives based upon works of art.
Pueblo Indian Watercolors
americanart.si.edu/education/
guides/pueblo
This online teacher’s guide focuses
on works from the Pueblo Indian
watercolor collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum
(SAAM). It is intended to help students learn to interpret images and
understand how images represent
meanings. While only thumbnail
images of the featured works are
provided in the guide, you can find
larger images of the same works by
doing a title or artist search on the
SAAM site.
Craig Roland is an associate professor of
Art Education in the School of Art and
Art History at the University of Florida
in Gainesville. He is the author of The
Art Teacher’s Guide to the Internet (Davis
Publications, 2005). rolandc@ufl.edu
