Curriculum Materials: Art in America
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Image 4 John Singleton Copley Questions: |
Think Questions Teacher Answer Key
1. Was Copley more interested in showing Mrs. Allen's personality or how she looked? What makes you think so?
2. Why do you think Mrs. Allen and her husband wanted to have PORTRAITS made? (To serve as visual records, to send to family, to hang in the home, to show their status.) Why do people today have portraits made? (For the same reasons.) Why do many more people have portraits made nowadays than during colonial times? (Photography has made it possible for more people to afford portraits.)
3. Do you consider this a good PORTRAIT? Why or why not? Do you consider this a beautiful portrait? Is a good work of art necessarily beautiful? Is a beautiful work of art necessarily good?
4. Copley based the scenery, pose, and clothing on an ENGRAVING of a PORTRAIT of an English noblewoman made several years earlier. What information are we left with about the real Mrs. Allen? (What her face looked like and her desire to be represented in this type of portrait.) Where could you go if you wanted to have a costume portrait made? (Victorian photography at The Mall of America; Frontier photography at the State Fair's Heritage Square; Glamour Shots, etc.) Why do we have costume photos made? (Amusement; to make us look like something or someone we want to be like.)
5. Copley had two problems to deal with in the colonies. One was the absence of art schools. The other was that the only paintings COMMISSIONED were PORTRAITS. How do you think an artist could learn to paint without art schools? (Look at other paintings, apprentice oneself to an artist, look at books, experiment on ones own.) Why do you think people only wanted portraits? (They perceived portraits as the only useful kinds of paintings; they did not have money to spend on art they did not consider useful.)
6. Compare and contrast Copley's
Portrait of Mrs. Nathaniel Allen to
Chuck Close's painting Frank
. What size is each painting? What is the relationship
between artist and subject in each? For what purpose was
each made? How did each artist determine his
COMPOSITION? Which
one is more
NATURALISTIC? Why
do you think so? When was each painting made? How does
this factor account for the differences discussed?
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