Albany, New York

12210

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albanyinstitute.org

RICHARD CALLNER:

 50 YEAR RETROSPECTIVE

         ACTIVITIES        

Some of the following activities are meant for use in the museum while visiting the exhibition and others are for the classroom. Some combine activities for both places.

Patterns in Nature

(for grades K – 3)

Callner’s landscapes capture some of the patterns found in nature and use them to describe the environments he creates.  Discuss the role of repetition in creating a pattern with students, as well as some of the patterns of nature.  Have students bring in natural objects (leaves, shells, feathers, etc.) and share them with the class.  Shuffle objects and have each child draw her/his own pattern from the object. 

Perspective and Points of View

(for grades 4 – 7)

Callner often uses distorted perspective, or combines different points of view in the same picture so that different portions of the composition seem to be seen from different angles.  If you are working with older students, you may want to start a discussion of perspective with 1-point perspective, in which things converge in the distance at one point, usually in the center of the composition (railroad tracks are a good example of this, since they seem to converge in the far distance).  Callner’s interior scenes, by contrast, have no one reference point, and this is clearly intentional. 

Examine one of Callner’s interior scenes with students, and discuss why he might have chosen to combine multiple perspectives.

In the classroom, place a 3-dimensional object like a chair in the center of the room, and position students all the way around it.  Have each student draw the object from this vantage point.  Then compare the drawings and discuss the different views each student had of the object.  Next, you might want to cut up each drawing into a few parts and have students create a group collage of the object that combines all the different points of view.  If relevant to your teaching goals, you may want to consider transferring this activity to a writing activity, helping students understand that people also write from their own unique point of view.

Artists’ Use of Mythology and Famous Stories

(grades 7 – 12)

Callner has created many paintings that incorporate or draw on famous myths (like Romulus and Remus, Lilith) and famous stories (like the Biblical stories of Adam and Eve). This fact might be a good starting point for a discussion about why artists (and writers, musicians, etc) may continue to refer to ancient, famous stories in their art. Why draw on characters invented long ago rather than creating their own new ones?  What about these famous mythological characters helps artists communicate their meaning?  How do artists help keep ancient myths alive this way? 

Have students choose a myth they like and illustrate it, selecting the scene that will represent the entire story.  Why did they choose that moment to depict?  Have them discuss why they show the action and characters as they do.

During your visit to AIHA:

At the Museum: Artists’ Styles, Past and Present 

(grades 6-12; related to social studies)

Look carefully with students at Callner’s landscape paintings, particularly those showing scenes of the Hudson River Valley (such as Hudson River North of Catskill and Hudson River, View from the “Old Friend”).  Then go to the Hudson River School galleries on the 3^rd floor of the museum and look at some 19^th-century landscape paintings of the same geographical area.   Ask students to articulate what is similar and different between the 19^th century artists’ paintings and Callner’s more contemporary ones, perhaps by making two communal lists.  Then, facilitate a student discussion of why the styles of two different time periods might be different.  What seems important to artists in one period and not in another (for example, perhaps nearly photographic realism versus many modern artists greater interest in abstraction).  Have students articulate which approach to representing landscape they prefer, and why, using concrete examples from specific paintings.

Richard Callner

• Biography

• Lilith

• Glossary

• Activities

• Bibliography and Web Resources