Grace Hartigan's Billboard
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Grace Hartigan Introduction |
Music
While living and working in New York, Grace Hartigan developed a lasting interest in jazz. Her art reflects the syncopated rhythms and improvisational style of 1950s modern jazz. She often went to the famous New York jazz club The Five Spot to hear jazz artists like Thelonious Monk, Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, and John Coltrane.
Listen and Look
Make a cassette tape of 30-second samplings of musical selections by jazz aritsts such as Monk, Davis, and Coltrane. Avoid music with lyrics or very familiar recordings--you already have associations. Quietly look at the painting as they listen. After each selection, ask what part of the painting you noticed. What areas, colors, and shapes were observed and how did the music influence your perceptions? (Did the slower music draw attention to the large, broad, dark areas? Did the fast music draw attention to the small, bright sections of the painting?) Discuss.
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Compare visual elements to musical elements. Discuss how they are similar and different. Explore form, tonal and visual color, rhythm pattern and beat, dynamics, and melodic phrases and contours.
Listen to the same selections of music and ask the students to "draw" the music. How does the drawing of a slow lyrical tune differ from the drawing of a fast, staccato tune?
Express through Abstraction
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Grace Hartigan's abstraction of images in Billboard, to express her feelings about life in New York in the 1950s, has a parallel in the way jazz artists of the time expressed themselves through music. First play the song "My Favorite Things," from the musical The Sound of Music, and then play John Coltrane's version of the same song (Atlantic 1960). How does John Coltrane improvise on, or abstract, the melody? How does he change the original melody? Can you still recognize it? Does he use the same instruments? Is the tempo slower or faster? How does each version make you feel? Which version do you like better? Why?
Discuss how Grace Hartigan has abstracted familiar images such as bottles, faces, and fruit. How is the improvisation on the song "My Favorite Things" similar to the abstraction in Billboard? Discuss how music and art are similar. Some words to get the discussion started are spontaneous, fast, loose, free, large, colorful, and loud.
Discuss how John Coltrane's "My Favorite Things" and Grace Hartigan's Billboard reflect life in New York in the 1950s.
Take a well-known song and improvise your version on a musical instrument. For example, you might use a different rhythm, change the tempo, repeat a single pattern several times, use fewer chords, or play longer melody lines.
Play the Painting
Look closely at Billboard and improvise a musical composition, either as a group or individually. Think about creating a beginning, middle, and end to the composition. Match specific sounds to things you see in the painting, such as low broad sounds for the larger areas, and high, light sounds for the bright areas.
Language Arts
Music
Social Studies
Science
Math