Abstract
We have implemented ‘Meme-ing the Great Masters of European Painting’ (LS-GR-109) by Maria Skiadelli. The implementation took place in a class of 8 graders, as part of our theme The strength of inspiration dealing with various artists and artwork, aiming to result with the following outcome: discuss types of art and art techniques; describe photographs of the artwork and demonstrate understanding of a text about works of art exhibited in famous museums around the world.
We chose this learning scenario since thinking that the author rightly deems that “Creating and sharing memes is an important part of the current youth’s culture and habits. This scenario aimed to use the expressive power of memes, for the students to reflect and get in touch with classical European paintings. The current youth culture seems to be rather detached from the classical eras and seem to ignore the huge cultural capital that is part of the very basis of our European identity. Using the power of technology and the social media, students had the chance to attribute new meaning and ideas to the classical paintings, transferring them to a whole new context and graciously placing them on the top cultural mainstream of the modern society”
Since already familiar with Europeana and given the age of my students already apt to meme-ing we dedicated only one lesson to this activity. Except for the introductory part, we strictly followed the Learning Scenario, but adjusted the timing.
Introductory part
The students are already acquainted with some 20th and 21st century artists through our lesson from the textbook. But they were challenged to name a painter they know and record it via Mentimeter. The aim of the introduction was to acquaint them to some of the great masters. To our surprise a student named Johannes Vermeer since knowing his painting Girl with a Pearl Earring. This served as an excellent support to the following activities.
Main part
The students were tasked to read about Johannes Vermer and Rembrandt van Rijn using Wikipedia.
//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rembrandt
//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Vermeer
Following their exposing what they found interesting about the painters, they were tasked to explore Europeana collections. My students have already used Europeana, so only a short introduction was needed regarding the reusable content and the credit attributes. The teacher also explained how to search in the collections and how to download images. Students also got to know the creative commons license. They were also guided on the possibilities to reach the Europeana content
//www.europeana.eu/portal/en/collections/art //www.europeana.eu/portal/en/explore/periods.html
Following the learning scenario we focused on Johannes Vermeer and Rembrandt van Rijn, two of the greatest masters of classical European paintings of the 17th century, who, although they represent the baroque movement, painted a lot of portraits of common people and scenes of the everyday living instead of mythical and religious themes.
The Rembrandt page
//www.europeana.eu/portal/en/search?q=Rembrandt%20van%20Rijn&view=grid
The Vermeer page
//www.europeana.eu/en/search?query=Johannes%20Vermeer&qf=TYPE%3A%22IMAGE%22&view=grid
Then students were asked about memes. They immediately responded questions about it and showed familiarity with the term. Thereafter they worked in pairs, reviewing the collections and choosing the painting which would be the basis for their meme. The students then downloaded respective paintings on their tablets and inserted the paintings on their presentation software.
This was the most creative part of the activity. Students observed the paintings in pairs, discussed with each other and tried to find either a title, or expression or small dialogue, that summarizes its meaning for them possibly in a fun way. They wrote it down on the painting page, using suitable tools. Finally they saved their presentation, as well as the pages as separate images and shared them with the teacher.
Final part
All the memes were collected by the teacher who inserted the memes into an e-book. The e-book was shared with the students via WhatsApp group so that they can see their work and choose the best one. This was done by the teacher following the lesson and for this purpose the teacher created a poll to find out the most successful meme as voted by the students. Students did this as part of their homework, reviewed the memes via Forms shared in a WhatsApp group and rated them. The most successful one was presented to them in the next lesson.
Outcomes
– The students learned to observe a piece of art and summarize its meaning in a short text or dialogue
– They got familiar with some of the masterpieces of the European art painting
– The students were able to search in big collections like Europeana using the right search keys and criteria
– The students were able to combine various on-line resources such as, the Europeana web site, Wikipedia and the presentation software.
– The students applied their IT skills in the common product development
– Students were able to communicate and collaborate through the social media, upload their memes, look and comment on their peers’ posts
Link to the learning scenario implemented: Meme-ing the Great Masters of European Painting (LS-GR-109) (eun.org)
Do you want to discover more stories of implementation? Click here.
PDM 1.0: the featured image used to illustrate this article has been found on Europeana and has been provided by the Nationalmuseum Sweden.
