NCEA Level 2 Art History (90230) 2011 — page 1 of 5
Assessment Schedule – 2011
Art History: Examine an art movement (90230)
Evidence Statement
Question One: Māori Art / Taonga
Achievement
Achievement with Merit
Achievement with Excellence
TWO or more contexts are used to
describe the impact of gender on
themes and materials in Māori art.
TWO or more key characteristics of
art made by men and women are
described
As for Achievement, plus:
Two art works are used to explain
the difference between art made by
men and art made by women.
As for Merit, plus:
The relationship between the art
works, and the social and historical
contexts that influenced male and
female Māori artists have been
comprehensively explained.
Responses could include:
Roles were clearly defined in
traditional Māori society. In the arts
men were responsible for carving
and women worked in the fibre arts.
Tapu restricted the skills of carving
of wood, bone, and stone to create
wharenui, tools, weapons, moko and
waka to men, while women
processed harakeke and other
materials, to create the clothes for
everyday and ceremonial purposes.
Within the wharenui the women
would create tukutuku panels for the
walls and fine mats for the floors.
Responses could include:
Hotunui te whare whakairo, now in
the Auckland Museum, was created
in 1875 by the master carver
Hotereni Taipari and carvers from
the Ngāti Awa tribe, and is an
important example of traditional
Māori art made by men. The house,
constructed and carved from timber,
features important tipuna from the
Ngāti Awa iwi. The ridgepole was
named after Hotunui, a great
ancestor of the tribe, and forty pou
count the generations that followed
from this ancestor.
Māori women were responsible for
weaving. This could be harakeke
woven into sandals or food
containers, or it could be more
ornate, decorated work like the
korowai or cloak with taniko borders
and interwoven with feathers. Like
the carving work done by men, this
was created by specialists for chiefs
and others of high rank. One
korowai in the Canterbury Museum
has kiwi feathers woven into a finely
worked harakeke base with borders
of geometric pattern from kereru
feathers.
Responses could include:
Māori society had strict rules and
protocols that defined the roles of
men and women. Only Men were
involved in carving, while women
took responsibility for weaving.
The Whare whakairo was the most
important building on the marae and
therefore there was strict protocol to
be observed in all aspects of its
construction. Only men were
allowed to be involved in the felling
of timber and the building and
carving of the figures of the
ancestors the house celebrates.
Oral records from Ngāti Awa explain
that before women were allowed to
enter the wharenui a ceremony was
held at dawn for three noble women
from the tribe who crossed the
threshold thus removing the tapu
and allowing all women to enter.
Women’s work, however, could be
highly valued too. The chief’s
korowai was highly prized as
feathers signified high rank. Flax
processing was a skilled task and
protocol was also involved in the
cutting, processing, dyeing and
weaving of the flax. Like carving
skills, the skills of weaving were
handed down through the
generations. Today some
contemporary Māori artists have
deliberately involved both men and
women in tasks that were once
exclusive to one or other gender.
NCEA Level 2 Art History (90230) 2011 — page 2 of 5
Question Two: Art in Aotearoa
Achievement
Achievement with Merit
Achievement with Excellence
At least TWO reasons why
regionalism became an important
style in New Zealand painting during
the 1930s and 1940s are described.
Two key characteristics are
described.
As for Achievement, plus:
An explanation is given of how two
art works reflect the dominance of
regionalism in New Zealand painting
from the 1930s to the 1960s.
As for Merit, plus:
How the two art works reflect the
emergence of regionalism in New
Zealand art and the social and
historical factors that have impacted
on the development of regionalism
is comprehensively explained.
Responses could include:
The 1930s–1960s was a crucial time
in the growth of modern New
Zealand painting. This era saw the
emergence of regionalism, which
was the realistic depicting of small
towns and rural life across various
areas within New Zealand.
Regionalism related to New
Zealand’s agricultural background
and the wholesomeness of its rural
heritage.
The style first emerged in
Christchurch at the Canterbury
School of Fine Arts. It was a means
of celebrating the uniqueness of the
New Zealand landscape. Clear
regionalist aspects are seen in the
work of artists like Doris Lusk and
Rita Angus and their focus on
regionalism established a strong
landscape tradition in New Zealand.
Even though regionalism occurred in
other countries it was seen as a
move towards strengthening a
national style of painting that would
be identified as being uniquely New
Zealand, with clear simplified
landforms set against a bright,
reflective light.
Responses could include:
The pupils from the Canterbury
School of Arts who painted the
landscape gave rise to the name
regionalism, and the way that the
paintings identified the imagery with
a particular place. Canterbury
regionalism was to do with rural
areas, small towns, mountains and
unpopulated hinterlands.
In Cass, 1936, Rita Angus tries to
interpret the characteristics of her
country, which is a key feature of
regionalism. The fact that she did
the final painting in a studio reflects
her careful planning of the scene so
that it is ordered and emphasises its
symbolic imagery.
William Sutton’s Norwester in the
Cemetery, 1950 focuses on a
climatic feature that typifies the area
– dry winds and distinctive clouds.
The motifs in the painting represent
the artist’s familiarity with the area –
the overgrown graveyard, the
chapel, the macrocarpas and long
golden grasses are all typical
features of Canterbury and create a
reflective mood. Even though there
are no people in this painting the
motifs and the landscape are
symbols of past generations that
have worked the land and battled
against the dry land and Southern
Alps.
The inclusion of the mountain range
in the background also enhances
the feeling of isolation and New
Zealand’s small population.
Responses could include:
Regionalism was concerned with
showing the unique features of a
place, and with the emergence of
works by Angus and Sutton, it
became a nationalist art movement
even though it is viewed as an
international style. Through these
artists’ work key themes in New
Zealand’s regionalist style became
isolation, celebrating rural life and
working hard. Other subjects such
as breaking in the land, farming,
small-town life or the depiction of
rural events were other popular
subjects of regionalism. Because of
the popularity of these subjects in
New Zealand painting, all of the
rural views looked similar, but as the
market for these art works was
urban, this did not matter.
The landscapes were popular, as
they typified New Zealand life.
Artists such as Sutton and Angus
were to have considerable impact
on painting up to 1970, with artists
such as Michael Smither and Robin
White working in a similar regionalist
tradition – Smither producing scenes
of the New Plymouth coast with its
rock formations, and White depicting
landscapes north of Wellington that
often showed typical New Zealand
dwellings. Her inclusion of small
beach houses or baches in the
landscape is like the work of Angus
and Sutton – referencing imagery
that typified a time and lifestyle
within New Zealand’s history.
NCEA Level 2 Art History (90230) 2011 — page 3 of 5
Question Three: French Art
Achievement
Achievement with Merit
Achievement with Excellence
The social and artistic factors that
led to the development of individual
artistic styles are described.
Key characteristics of Post
Impressionism are identified.
As for Achievement, plus:
An explanation is given of how TWO
art works relate to Post
Impressionism and its contexts.
As for Merit, plus:
How the art works relate to Post
Impressionism is comprehensively
explained
Responses could include:
By the mid-1880s, Impressionism
had run its course and new
directions were being sought.
Younger artists all developed
theories in isolation and in
contradiction to one another. The
name ‘Post Impressionism’ was
given to them as they departed from
Impressionism to find new ways of
painting. What they all wanted to do
was go beyond the world of fleeting,
external appearances that had been
so important to the Impressionists,
and give their art greater meaning
and create images that had a
timeless quality.
Key characteristics varied between
artists but most took one or two
aspects of Impressionism, like
colour or brushwork, and
exaggerated them in a nonnaturalistic fashion.
Responses could include:
Georges Seurat took the visible
brushstrokes and scientific
developments in colour of the
Impressionists and pushed them
further. In Les Poseuse, 1888,
Seurat used the ‘Venus Pudica’, a
Roman copy of an ancient Greek
sculpture, as a model for the central
figure, being both a studio model
and a reference from classical art.
Seurat was also interested in
ancient art and the tiny fragments of
coloured stones that created Roman
mosaics and up close looked similar
to the dots in his pointillist
technique, yet like his paintings,
merged together at a distance to
create a design.
By the time he painted Mont Sainte
Victoire in 1887, Paul Cézanne had
established a passion for solidity
and structure in his art rather than
the Impressionists’ aim of capturing
a fleeting moment. His technique
consisted of creating a tapestry of
vertical, horizontal and diagonal
strokes, which gave the forms a
tactile quality and created a hatchlike collection of brushstrokes on the
surface. He painted the mountain
many times, in each version the
forms became more flattened and
geometrical, evidence of his wish to
‘view nature through the sphere,
cylinder and cone’.
Responses could include:
The eighth and last Impressionism
exhibition was held in 1886, but by
this time many of the works were not
true to the original principles of
Impressionism. Initially, the
Impressionists abandoned the
studio to make their paintings
outdoors using natural light, their
subject being the modern city and
suburbs. This interest was being
rejected by new and younger artists
and by many of Impressionism’s
original supporters.
Some of the Post Impressionists,
such as Seurat, painted areas of the
city that were less salubrious and
more industrial, which they believed
to be a more realistic and
contemporary view that was also
suggested by artists such as
Gauguin and Van Gogh, who saw
the city as a place of bleak isolation,
which was in sharp contrast to the
happy and contented scenes of the
Impressionists.
Artists such as Seurat and Cézanne
sought inspiration from the roots of
classical and Renaissance art for
their figures. They also wanted to
reintroduce more formal painting
techniques into their works – most
believed that the technique in later
Impressionist paintings had become
too random and lacked coherency.
Seurat’s early training was strongly
academic, in his study of Ingres’
drawings and then studying the
scientific writings of Chevreul, who
discovered how colours were altered
by the other colours that surrounded
them. Seurat created his own form
of structured pointillism, which
returned order and precision back to
the process of painting. Even though
Cézanne painted his landscapes
such as Mont Sainte Victoire
outdoors, he built up the paint
surface thickly and slowly so that the
visual sensations were recorded to
create forms in light that were
‘durable’. Probably his rejection of
traditional illusionistic space and the
tension he created through depicting
NCEA Level 2 Art History (90230) 2011 — page 4 of 5
three-dimensional objects on a flat
surface is what made him most
distinctively different from the
Impressionists.
Despite all of these artists –
Cézanne, Seurat, Gauguin and Van
Gogh – dying relatively young and
before the Impressionists, they
paved the way for new expressions
in art and provided the springboard
for art to disperse from
Impressionism into the vast range of
movements that came to be called
‘modern art’ at the turn of the
twentieth century.
NCEA Level 2 Art History (90230) 2011 — page 5 of 5
Question Four: New Zealand Architecture
Achievement
Achievement with Merit
Achievement with Excellence
TWO historical and artistic contexts
that influenced Gothic revival
architecture are identified.
TWO key characteristics of this
building type are identified
As for Achievement, plus:
An explanation is given of how TWO
buildings are representative of
Gothic Revival.
As for Merit, plus:
The relationships tbetween the
buildings the historical and artistic
contexts is comprehensively
explained
Responses could include:
Most early settlers in New Zealand
in the nineteenth century were from
European, mainly English
backgrounds. They sought to
recreate the architectural
environment that they knew at
home. Gothic Revival was a very
popular style at the time most
settlers came to New Zealand. The
style was developed through the
Anglican church, and many settlers
were Anglican as this was the main
denomination in England.
Responses could include:
St John’s College Chapel, 1847 in
Auckland is an example of a Gothic
Revival Anglican church. Even
though it is built from timber rather
than stone, its exposed bracing,
pointed arches and clearly
differentiated parts was true to
gothic principles of design set down
by church leaders at this time.
The Arts Centre in Christchurch was
built as the University for Canterbury
from 1877 onwards. It has pointed
arches, stained glass windows,
randomly sized stone work walls,
metal decorative detailing on the
roofline and a picturesque
composition of its parts. All these
features clearly identify it as part of
the Gothic Revival style.
Responses could include:
As St John’s College was used to
train Anglican ministers it is not
surprising that the church was a
model of the best design principles
of the Anglican church. Bishop
Selwyn, the Bishop of New Zealand,
was a member of the Ecclesiological
Society in England, which had
developed rules for Anglican church
building based on gothic design.
These included the use of timber in
colonies where stone would prove
too expensive. Working with the
architect Frederick Thatcher, St
Johns provided a correct model for
church builders in the colonies to
copy.
The buildings for Canterbury
College, later the University of
Canterbury were also following the
fashion for Gothic Revival even
though they were not for the church.
The precedent for the use of the
gothic style was also English. The
first universities, which in England
were Oxford and Cambridge, were
founded in the medieval period, and
in consequence many educational
buildings followed this lead by
building in the Gothic Revival style.
Achievement
Achievement with Merit
Achievement with Excellence
A
M
E
Judgement Statement