Genres of Art: Portraits, Still Lives, and Landscapes

Do Now: If you ruled your own country, what would your flag look like? Why? Design your flag, then write one sentence that explains why your flag looks the way it does.

"This is a sports flag. I designed it this way because I love sports."

"Funky Town."

Today, the 3rd and 4th grade began a new unit, "Portraits, Still Lives, and Landscapes." 

First, we learned the word "genre", which comes from the French word 'type' or 'kind'. 

Though most of the class had heard of portraits, fewer were familiar with still lives and landscapes. 

After discussing these 3 genres of art, each student received a piece of paper divided into 3 sections. In each section, students wrote the definition of one of the genres, then spent time making a quick sketch of a portrait, a still life, and a landscape.

The definitions that we will be working with are as follows:

Portrait: A painting, drawing, or other type of art that shows an image of a person. Portraits show something about the person, such as what they look like, what type of mode they are in, or what their personality is like. 

A very famous example is the Mona Lisa, by Leonardo Da Vinci.

Still Life: A painting, drawing, or photograph of objects arranged in a specific position. 

Landscape: A painting, drawing, or photograph of nature. Landscapes are usually made from a far away perspective, and are often horizontal. They typically show natural elements like mountains, rivers, forests, and sky. 

We will continue to work on our sketches next class, so stay tuned!