OBJECTIVE: Introduce
students to the “waltz
king” Strauss and listen to
the distinctive rhythm of
the waltz. Review
IMPRESSIONISM and the
practice of en plein air and
observe how shadow and
light create TEXTURE in
RENOIR’s painting.
INTRODUCTION:
 Review 4.1 Artist
o
William
Harnett, My
Gems
o
Realism and
Trompe L’Oeil
COMPOSER: Johann
Strauss Jr. (1825-1899)
 Vienna’s “Waltz
King”
 The Blue Danube
 Distinct 1-2-3
RHYTHM
PAINTING: Moulin de la
Galette
 Outdoor café scene
of people dancing
 Translates as “The
Ball at the Pancake
Mill (1849-1892)
fame 4.1 Pierre August Renoir
Moulin de la Galette •
Johann Strauss Jr. Blue Danube
“The figures dance on a ground that looks like purplish clouds darkening the sky on a stormy day”
—contemporary journalist writing about Moulin de la Galette
(Put materials on desks before beginning the lesson. You can ask students to share some ARTSY rules before
beginning. Place paintings/posters facing backwards on whiteboard. Play Strauss’ Waltz softly the background)
Welcome to the second FAME lesson for the year. In the first lesson we talked about artist William Harnett and
his painting My Gems. Do you remember what style of painting he was known for? Realism. And some of his
paintings were so real they “tricked the eye.” Do you remember the fancy French word for this? Trompe L’Oeil.
Today we’re going to look at a style of painting that is not meant to look real
but rather give the person viewing it an idea or “impression” of the object.
The Blue Danube & The Waltz
Our painting today is a picture of people waltzing and dancing to music like
that by our featured composer Austrian Johann Strauss Jr. (1825-1899). He
was a popular musician and known as Vienna’s beloved “Waltz King” for his
“symphonies for dancing.” We have been playing his most famous waltz, The
Blue Danube. The waltz is a musical composition with a very recognizable
RHYTHM. It is so distinct that there is a special ballroom dance to go with it!
You can play one of the youtube clips of the song and point out the distinct
1-2-3 rhythm.
The Blue Danube was so popular that they
couldn’t print copies fast enough to keep up
with the demand. A copper plate was etched
with the musical notes and staff of the music,
inked, then used to print 10,000 copies of the
music until all the metal was worn down.
Over a hundred copper plates were created—
that’s over a million copies!
The Waltz replaced the stylized French
dances with sweeping triple meter music that
gave dancers the opportunity to embrace one
another. Some towns passed ordinances
against the waltz, citing health hazards and
the possibility of participants fainting or
having heart attacks while engaged in this
sinful, immoral dance.
Let’s look at the dancers in this painting. Show painting. How do the people
in the painting look? What is their mood? What are they doing? Where do
you think they are? They are outdoors; relaxing and socializing; they appear
happy. The full name of the painting is Le Bal du Moulin de la Galette
[Moo-LAN doo la Gal-EHT). In French, “moulin” means mill, and a “galette” is
a pastry similar to a pancake so it means “The Ball at the Pancake Mill.” It was
the fashion to hold Sunday afternoon dances at this café in the working class
part of Paris called Montmarte (mant-mart). You can read the description from Renoir’s perspective in A Weekend
With Renoir.
Do you remember these paintings? Show prints of Cassat’s Woman with Dog; Monet’s Water Lilies; Degas’ Ballet
Class from portfolio. Do you remember the name given to this style of painting? I gave you a clue when I
mentioned that this painting was not real, but gave an impression. IMPRESSIONISM. For kindergarteners simply
 Compare to other
introduce the term.
IMPRESSIONIST
paintings: Cassat,
Impressionists loved to paint outdoors using natural light and bright colors. We’re going to teach you another
Monet and Degas
fancy French word today: En Plein Air which means painting in the open air. See vocabulary box. Our artist today
VOCABULARY: En Plein Air
 Painting in the
open air
 Impressionist
practice
ARTIST: French
Impressionist Pierre
Auguste Renoir (1841-
Pierre Auguste Renoir [Pea-AIR Oh-GUST Re-NWAR] (18411819) was a French Impressionist painter. He asked his friends to
help him carry an enormous canvas to the old mill and then pose
for him. He scrutinized the effects of the light trickling through
the leafy trees, the spots of sunlight on the faces of his friends,
and the flickering shadows. Renoir then applied pure and brilliant
color with the short brush strokes that were one of the
characteristics of IMPRESSIONISM.
1819)
When we look at My Gems last lesson we talked about the way
ART ELEMENTS: Show
Harnett arranged his special items in his still life in a particular way
Visual
to make it meaningful and interesting. Do you remember what
 LIGHT AND COLOR
this art element is called? COMPOSITION. Show Art Elements
 SHADOW
poster. What ART ELEMENTS stand out most in Renoir’s
painting? LIGHT AND SHADOW, COLOR AND TEXTURE. His use
 TEXTURE
of warm color and variegated shadow provide a youthful, sensual
Art Project: Impressionist
glow to the skin. The broken brush strokes provide the interesting
floral painting
all-over texture and despite the blurry look you can still
 Choose paper for
vase
 Cut vase
 Follow docents to
work with gel-like
paint
 Done in
impressionist style
VOCABULARY: EN PLEIN AIR
Plein air painting is about leaving the
four walls of your studio behind and
experiencing painting and drawing in
the landscape. The practice goes back
for centuries but was truly made into an
art form by the French Impressionists.
Their desire to paint light and its
changing, ephemeral qualities, coupled
with the creation of transportable paint
tubes and the box easel allowed artists
the freedom to paint “en plein air,”
which is the French expression for “in
the open air.” They used broken brush
work to create a “blurry” or prismatic
image to convey nature's mutability.
differentiate the textures: laces from silks, velvets from the crisp
straw in the hats.
Over his lifetime Renoir made several thousand paintings, and continued to paint when he suffered terrible
arthritis by taping paintbrushes to his arms! Today we will create our own impressionist painting. First we will have
you chose the color of your vase for your flowers. Next we will fold our colored paper in half and either trace or
freehand cut out our vase with scissors and set it aside. Then we will follow the instructions to create our
impressionistic floral paintings. These paints have a gel like consistency and you do not need to use a lot of it. We
will be painting lightly so they dry nicely. Remember this is impressionism and the paintings trick the eye,
therefore your flowers will not be perfect. The process we use today for painting the flowers will create an illusion
of a full vase of flowers from a distance.