Exploring the Great Artists
of the World
4th Grade Program
Study Notes for:
“Name That Artist”
Final Quiz
Mrs. Hewgley’s Class
4th Grade Artist Review
Group Presentation
1.
Art Period Name:
What describes
the art style?:
2.
Timeline Date(s):
Where in the world
was it centered?:
3.
Artist’s Name:
When and where
was he/she born?:
4.
Favorite Subjects:
How were the
paintings created?:
5.
What was most interesting about the artist’s life?
What was most interesting about the artist’s work?
All
What was happening in the world at that time?
Rembrandt Review
1. Rembrandt van Rijn was born in 1606 and died in 1669. He lived and painted in
Holland.
2. Rembrandt’s parents wanted him to study law. He preferred to study art and
quickly mastered everything he was taught.
3. Rembrandt began teaching at a very early age (22 years old) because he had
already earned a reputation for his skill at painting.
4. We know what Rembrandt looked like because he painted so many self-portraits.
5. Rembrandt is well known for his use of light and dark paints to enhance the
dramatic effects of his work.
6. Rembrandt liked to paint at home and spend lots of time with his family. He
used his family and relatives as models in many of his works.
7. Rembrandt’s “paying” subjects dressed up in dark, formal clothing for their
portraits. They wanted to look very serious.
8. Rembrandt made the people he painted seem alive, even more real than a
photograph could (if cameras had been around then).
9. Due to active trade and colonization of other countries at that time, Europeans
started painting pictures of exotic places and people.
10. In addition to portraits, Rembrandt also painted landscapes in which the scenery
is the most important part of the picture.
11. Landscape painting was influenced by the scientific discovery that the earth was
not at the center of the universe.
12. Rembrandt liked dogs and often included them in his paintings.
13. Rembrandt liked to spend money on other artists’ work, antiques, armor, jewelry
and fancy clothes. He used them in his artwork.
14. Rembrandt painted a lot of biblical subjects, which was common in Baroque art in
other parts of Europe.
15. Rembrandt made more drawings and etchings than his paintings, and was also
known as a talented graphic artist.
Hiroshige Review
1. Hiroshige was born in Edo, Japan. Edo was the early name for Tokyo, which was
named the capital of Japan in 1615.
2. He was born of a low-ranking Samurai family. Samurais were warriors who
inherited their warrior status from their families.
3. Hiroshige’s father was a fire warden at Edo Castle. At the age of 12, both of
his parents died.
4. He began creating beautiful art at the age of 10. When he was 14, he was
fortunate enough to join the famous Utagawa painting school.
5. Hiroshige started his career as a book illustrator. Typical subjects out of that
time were kabuki actors, beautiful women and a few warrior prints.
6. Ukiyo-e was a technique learned from the Chinese. The first prints were black
and white with one or two colors applied by hand after printing.
7. During this peaceful period, people were not allowed to travel abroad, and ports
were closed to foreign trade – but the arts were very big.
8. Artists began using wood block printing to create small paintings, like postcards.
Farmers and merchants bought these souvenirs when they went to the capital
on business.
9. When Hiroshige tried a new art form of landscape prints, he decided to go on a
travelling journey and make prints of his experiences.
10. He made 53 prints of his journey, which he called stations. The stations along
the highway were a kind of turnpikes where tolls had to be paid.
11. The Tokaido was the highway connecting Edo with Kyoto, the home city of the
emperor. In all, Hiroshige made 16 to 19 series of the Tokaido.
12. He was a gentle man and communicated through his paintings.
13. His prints depicted scenery together with the life of different peoples and
their manners and customs.
14. Hiroshige often portrayed rain and fog in his landscapes.
15. During his lifetime, Ando Hiroshige was well known and commercially successful.
But the Japanese society didn’t take too much notice of him.
Kandinsky Review
1. Kandinsky was born in 1866 in the country of Russia. His great-grandmother was a
Mongolian princess.
2. When he was young, Kandinsky learned to play the piano.
3. He studied to be a lawyer and enjoyed painting in his spare time. He felt art was “a
luxury forbidden to a Russian.”
4. Kandinsky left Moscow to study art in Munich, Germany when he was 30.
5. The Expressionist period dates were from 1905 to the early 1920’s. It was
centered in Germany and Austria.
6. The Expressionist style portrays its subject by expressing the artist’s inner state.
They create forms and shapes rather than people or landscapes.
7. Kandinsky’s early works were naturalistic and his very late works were geometric.
His work was characterized by his use of bold strokes and strong colors.
8. A “Haystacks” painting by the artist, Monet first influenced Kandinsky to move
away from creating defined subjects.
9. Many Expressionist works of art were inspired by music. Kandinsky claimed that
when he saw color he heard music.
10. Kandinsky belonged to one of the two main groups of Expressionist artists, called
Blue Rider: named for Kandinsky’s love of blue and Marc’s love of horses.
11. His first abstract painting was created by accident. Later, Kandinsky deliberately
planned his work, taking the subject and making it more abstract and colorful.
12. He loved color and believed that “every color has a mysterious life of its own” and
makes the viewer feel strong emotions.
13. He believed art shouldn’t be explained by the artist but should be felt by the
viewer. He believed the artist’s feelings were private.
14. In addition to being a well-known painter, Kandinsky was a teacher and writer.
15. Kandinsky is considered to be the founder of the Abstract art form and abstract
expressionism, the main school of painting since WWII (1939-1945).
Kahlo Review
1. Frida Kahlo grew up in Mexico, and was curious about science and nature. She was
always bringing home plants, rocks and insects to study.
2. Kahlo’s father was a professional photographer and amateur artist. He taught her
about ancient Mexican art and architecture.
3. When she was five years old, she caught a serious disease called polio.
4. Frida was very bright and her father wanted her to have a good education. He sent
her to the National Preparatory School, where she was one of only a few girls.
5. In high school, Kahlo was in a bus accident and was bedridden for months. She started
painting portraits of her friends, family and the subject she knew best: herself.
6. After the Mexican Revolution, the people won the right to make life fair for everyone
in Mexico. The new Revolution government commissioned paintings by muralists.
7. Frida first met her future husband, Diego Rivera, when he was painting a mural at her
high school. She played tricks on him while he was working to get his attention.
8. At that time in Mexico, art was strongly influenced by nationalism. Kahlo even wore
the traditional costumes and hairdos to show she loved her country.
9. Frida liked to paint flowers, plants, animals, costumes, jewelry, and ancient gods and
idols that were found only in Mexico.
10. Many Mexican Folk Art pieces tell simple stories of the history of Mexico. The
Mexican artists used bright colors in their works and included elements of fantasy.
11. Kahlo was discovered and had exhibitions sponsored by the surrealists. She didn’t
consider herself a surrealist because her paintings were from real life experiences.
12. In many of Kahlo’s works, she shows herself surrounded by things that were important
to her. She also made graphic paintings about experiences that had been painful.
13. Frida created about 200 paintings, many of which are self-portraits.
14. When she first traveled with her husband, he was considered the true artist. Kahlo
painted some of her best work when she and Diego were apart.
15. She became known first for the work she created in the United States. Then her
work was more accepted in Mexico and she became famous after she was dead.
Adams Review
1. Ansel Adams was born in San Francisco in 1902 and died in 1984.
2. When Adams was young, he taught himself to play the piano and decided to
pursue becoming a concert pianist.
3. He broke his nose during the 1906 earthquake and visited the Panama-Pacific
Exposition in 1915.
4. Adams was 14 when he first visited Yosemite National Park. He had his first
camera with him and took 30 photographs that day.
5. In 1917, Adams worked at a photo finishing business. Photography was then
just a hobby for him to communicate his emotions.
6. He returned to Yosemite every year, and was even married there in 1928.
7. In 1932, Adams and other photographers formed “Group f.64” to advocate
photography as an art form, rather than just a commercial craft.
8. Adams was a serious hiker as well, walking up to 50 miles in one day. He spent
time exploring Yosemite both by himself and with the Sierra Club.
9. John Muir, the environmentalist, influenced Adams’ landscape art form.
10. Ansel Adams was known for his photographs of the landscape of the American
West.
11. His pictures show raw mountains, harsh deserts, enormous clouds, and towering
trees in sharp detail, dramatized by light and shadow.
12. He took his most famous photographs with a heavy camera standing on an
aluminum platform atop his old station wagon.
13. He published his first portfolio at age 25. His photographs were included in
more than 500 exhibitions during his lifetime.
14. His work conveyed a vision of an “ideal” America that helped inspire the
wilderness conservation movement.
15. Adams was named to President Johnson’s environmental task force in 1965 and
awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Carter in 1980.
Warhol Review
1. Andy Warhol was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1928.
2. He helped develop Pop Art, one of the best-known and most fun art periods.
3. The name “Pop Art” comes from the word “popular” for art subjects that were
a popular part of everyday modern life.
4. The Pop Art period began mainly in the United States and Great Britain in the
late 1950s and continued through the 1960s.
5. Andy Warhol’s best-known paintings and prints are usually brightly colored.
6. Andy was very sickly as a child, and liked to watch movies very much.
7. In art school, Andy developed an unusual art style called “the blotted-line
method.” After he graduated, he went to New York City.
8. Warhol first found jobs illustrating magazines, designing greeting cards,
record albums and book covers.
9. When he decided to become a serious artist he began making paintings of
comic strip characters, Newspaper ads, and supermarket products.
10. He wanted his art to be different, and yet for people to be interested in it.
He chose unusual subjects, like money and soup cans.
11. Warhol often asked people for ideas. He always made sure, though, that the
way he showed those ideas was original and all his own.
12. He liked to paint on blank backgrounds to make his subjects stand out and look
real – the way they were made in real life.
13. Warhol thought repeated images were an important part of Pop Art, because
things are repeated in real life all the time.
14. Andy started to use a way to print his paintings called photo silk-screening.
He’d produce a series of mass-media images—repetitive, with slight variations.
15. When he died in 1987, he was very popular. Some people called him an art
“superstar."