Curriculum Materials: Art in America
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Image 26 Bob Thompson Questions: |
Look Questions Teacher Answer Key
1. What is going on in this painting? How many figures are there? (Nine.) How many of them are children? (At least two, possibly four.) How many red figures do you count? Blue? Pink? Yellow? Red-violet? This painting celebrates a singer named Nina Simone. Which figure represents the singer? How can you tell? Name at least three ways that the artist, Bob Thompson, has drawn attention to her. (She is the only blue figure. She is in the center of the picture. She is playing a guitar. She is placed against a broad patch of bright orange.)
2. What kind of day is it in this picture? How can you tell? What might the temperature be?
3. Name five things from nature in this scene. Does the scene look natural? What about it looks natural? (The tree on the far left, the grass on the right, some of the colors.) What does not look natural? (The bold colors of the figures and some parts of the landscape; the flatness; the swirling lines of the sky.)
4. An outline or CONTOUR line is a line that describes the outside edge of an object or figure. Where do you see outlines in this picture? (Around many of the figures, around the rock/tree stump in the right front, around the mountains and some of the clouds.) Does it look like Thompson painted the outlines or the figures themselves first? What makes you think so? Does the outline method make the figures appear flat or THREE-DIMENSIONAL? (Flat.) What else about these figures makes them look so flat? (They are shown as silhouettes.)
5. What object is farthest away from us in this painting? (The blue mountain.) How can you tell? (The mountain in the BACKGROUND is smaller than everything else and it is on the HORIZON LINE.) Which figure is closest? (The seated red figure on the right.) How can you tell? (By being placed so close to the bottom of the picture, it appears to be the closest to the viewer. It is slightly larger than the other figures. It overlaps the yellow figure.)
6. Thompson based his
COMPOSITION on a
painting by a French painter who regularly used triangles in
his pictures to give them stability. Thompson has also used
triangles. Where do you see triangles in this composition?
Which of the figure groups form triangles? Is this picture
calm or lively? How has Thompson
created a lively composition even though he has used so many
triangles?
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