Here is a high-interest reading on comics superhero Superman and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet if you need them.
If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
“Ziggurat: (Akkadian, ziqqurratu = mountaintop or height) A temple built in the form of a rectangle-based pyramid and made of mud brick tapering in stages toward the top. The ziggurat originated with the Sumerians; the Assyrians and Babylonians later followed their example. Well-known ziggurats include those of Ur and Babylon, located in what is now southern Iraq.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
Posted in Essays/Readings, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
“Art Brut: A term coined by French artist Jean Dubuffet to characterize spontaneous and rough artistic expression of children, prisoners, and the insane. Dubuffet’s collection of art brut inspired him to reclaim untrained and marginal artistic elements in his own work. See naïve art and ‘outsider’ art.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
“luminism: American landscape school associated chiefly with the Hudson River School. Luminist paintings are characterized by a fascination with water and light in landscape, by an absence of brush marks, and my masterful control of tonal gradations in atmospheric perspective.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
Posted in Essays/Readings, Quotes, Reference
“’Low’ Art: Comprises the ‘lesser’ or ‘minor’ arts, also known as the decorative or applied arts. A more contemporary understanding of the term relates it to popular culture. Since the 1960s and the pop art movement, artists have freely appropriated objects from everyday consumer culture for content and conceptual inspiration. Andy Warhol’s infinitely reproducible silkscreens of Marilyn Monroe, and Roy Lichtenstein’s iconic imitations of melodramatic cartoons, challenge basic assumptions previously ascribed to ‘high’ art, such as the uniqueness and seriousness of the artwork. The boundary between ‘high’ and ‘low’ art has faded in the contemporary art scene. Once-marginal artists, such as Keith Haring and his graffiti art were quickly commodified, and their works sold for large amounts of money.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
“Cosmati Work: Architectural and decorative stone surfaces inlaid with cubes of colored glass, marble mosaic tesserae, and gilding, produced in Italy from the 12th to the 14th centuries. From Cosmati, the family of craftsman who worked in the technique.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
“(fr Arab kal’-at hamra, “the red castle”) A citadel and palace at Granada, Spain, built by Moorish kings in the 13th century. The buildings stand on a plateau some thirty-five acres in area and are surrounded by a reddish brick wall. Considered one of the finest examples of Moorish architecture in Spain, the palace consists largely of two rectangular courts, the Court of the Pool or Myrtles and the Court of the Lions, and their adjoining chambers. The latter court contains a famous central fountain, consisting of an alabaster basin supported by twelve lions of white marble. While he was an attache at the American legation in Madrid in 1829, Washington Irving spend much time in the Alhambra and wrote a well-known volume of sketches and tales called Legends of the Alhambra (1832, 1852). An admirer of Moorish civilization, he wrote about the clashes between the Spaniards and the Moors.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
One of the great pleasures of the last eight months I’ve passed in Springfield, Massachusetts, has been my walks along Mattoon Street. It was on my way to work and back, so it was rare that I didn’t pass along the block at least once a day. Springfield has wisely and carefully preserved the general area in which this residential street is located, the Quadrangle-Mattoon Street Historic District. The neighborhood is a gem in an otherwise–I use this word advisedly, and only because I’ve seen it in the local press, and indeed, even used by the City of Springfield itself, enough to take my own liberties with it–blighted city.
Earlier this year I learned a couple of things about the North Congregational Church on Mattoon Street. First, it was one of the earliest designs of the storied American architect H.H. Richardson, that it is rendered in his characteristic style, Richardson Romanesque, and contains Tiffany windows. Second, I learned that this amazing piece of United States history is actually for sale for an asking price of $600,000.
As this reading on H.H. Richardson explains, he remains one of the most important and influential architects ever to work in the United States. Here, if these materials are of any interest to your students, is the vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet that attends this short reading.
If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
“Kitsch: A strict dictionary definition describes kitsch as a ‘something of tawdry design, appearance, or content created to appeal to popular or undiscriminating taste.’ By the 1960s, pop artists were ushering in changed attitudes as they appropriated these once-denigrated mass-produced objects for use in their works. Contemporary artists like Jeff Koons continue to walk a fine line between the good taste of bad taste and outright bad taste.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
Posted in Essays/Readings, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
“Primarily a movement in decoration and applied design at the end of the 19th century. Its influence spread through Europe and pervaded painting, architecture, and, ultimately, even music and literature before fading with the advent of World War I. Occurring in reaction to the eclecticism of the 19th century, art nouveau was hailed as totally original and unprecedented. Central to the aesthetic was organic fluidity, evoked by the plantlike or serpentine curves that are its hallmark. In Germany art nouveau was called Jugendstil (‘youth style’), after the journal Jugend (1896); other contemporary reviews reflecting the trend and its shaping influences were Pan (1895-1900), Beardsley’s Yellow Book (1894) and Ver Sacrum (1898), the organ of the Vienna Secession. In painting, the works of Klimt and the Belgian Henry van de Velde (1863-1957) are exemplary, but numerous other artists were caught up in the movement. The ornate Spanish buildings of Antonio Gaudi and the Paris Metro stations of Hector Guimard (1867-1942) are the most famous architectural manifestations. The posters of Theophile Steinlen (1852-1923), the stage designs of Leon Bakst (1866-1924), the illustrations of Aubrey Beardsley, and the glassware of Louis Tiffany are all outstanding decorative applications of art nouveau. Ultimately, the movement deteriorated to a trite and superficial fashion, but its influence continues to be seen in surviving artifacts and occasional revivals of art nouveau decoration.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
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