"Goliath doesn’t have a very big head for a giant."

Greetings from Newhalen everybody! I'm enjoying my time here and catching up on readings. You know I got a little frustrated by reading the obvious explanations in the first section of the book. Having completed numerous art history courses throughout my college career I didn’t learn many new things. I thought it was funny to see certain examples mentioned while others were not on any given topic. For instance, under the question “Do people steal paintings from museums or galleries?” the “Mona Lisa-napping” was mentioned but Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” was not. I have found that more students are likely to remember seeing stories about the “napping” of The Scream in the papers, so it might be a better way to ground the answer in an event they are familiar with. I did not like how “painterly” this book was. As a sculptor I feel undermined,underrepresented, beaten down by ‘the man’. Maybe I should start quoting the principles and elements of design that are missing in two dimensional works as if it were the Constitution of the United States and I’m the Reverend Riveter Rosie… “the art world has written a bad check and it has come back with a notice of ‘insufficient funds’ …”
I thought we were supposed to be teaching multicultural awareness AND multi-dimensional awareness as well… I’m being silly I know. But, in general, this happens a lot. Painting gets the most attention because people buy paintings more often. People buy paintings more often because they don’t take up space and they cover up stains on the walls, or at least they bring out a color in the new upholstery. Ok, now I’m displaying prejudice from the 3-D side. I’ll stop with my labels and assumptions.
I think the questions listed in the art examples are interesting. I noticed that many in the “David with the Head of Goliath” were focused on the details of the story, especially in the 5-7 year level, and it takes until after age 13 for a substantial number of the questions to be centered around the artist’s intent and process. I wonder what kind of questions about the process you could come up with for this painting that would reach the 5-7 year olds, I can’t imagine that looking at the art process or principles and elements within the artwork would be beyond their understanding capabilities. In the leading questions listed after the “Still Life with Fruit and Lobster” I noticed that the comment ‘everything is jumbled up’ was turned into a discussion about design principles, so the author does not limit the youngsters to historical background information, which is nice to know. Because of my personal taste in artwork I would not be very excited about discussing a work such as this with students, but after reading the leading questions I was able to gain a point of entry into this and other pieces that ‘aren’t my style’ and envision myself sharing the information I know from what I see or have studied with greater zeal.