Classic Paintings for your Classroom

The School of Athens by Raphael

Exposing students to great pieces of art is an easy way to enhance a lesson, provide a visual way to practice a skill, and educate our students beyond the prescribed curriculum.

For example, if you’re teaching students to “compare and contrast,” open with a couple of interesting works of art then move to the text.

Here are links to some great works that you might use to spice up a lesson. I’ve tried to err on the side of “school appropriate” when building this collection and almost all are in the public domain (Picasso’s work is one exception).

Naturally, it’s a work in progress. Feel free to shoot me some suggestions at ian@byrdseed.com or @IanAByrd.

Table of Contents

• Raphael
• Van Gogh
• Da Vinci
• Michelangelo
• Picasso
• Impressionists
• Japanese Art
• Other Examples
• Reader Roundup

Raphael

• St. George and the Dragon
• Portrait of Pope Julius II
• One of Raphael’s works of architecture: Chigi Chapel
• The School of Athens

Van Gogh

• The Starry Night
• Irises
• The Potato Eaters
• Series of self portraits

Da Vinci

• The Last Supper
• Mona Lisa
• Self Portrait
• Study of a horse (Kids should see that Da Vinci spent time practicing and studying before creating a final piece)

Michelangelo

• The Creation of Adam
• A study for Libyan
• Pietà

Picasso

• Three Musicians Example of Cubism
• The Old Guitarist From the Blue Period
• The Actor From Picasso’s Rose Period

The Impressionists

• Monet’s Haystacks
• Monet’s Water Lilies
• Pissarro’s Children on a Farm
• Degas’ Dancers at the Bar
• Renoir’s Dance at the Moulin de la Galette

Japanese Art

• Hiroshige’s Man On Horseback Crossing A Bridge
• Hiroshige’s Great Bridge, Sudden Shower (Van Gogh replicated this painting here).
• Kanō Eitoku’s Cypress Tree
• Hokusai’s Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, of which The Great Wave Off Kanagawa is the most famous.
• Tawaraya Sotasu’s Wind God and Thunder God

Other Interesting Examples

• Salvador Dalí’s The Persistence of Memory
• Lichtenstein’s Bedroom at Arles
• Munch’s The Scream
• El Greco’s View of Toledo
• Caravaggio’s The Calling of St. Matthew
• Matisse’s Luxe, Calme et Volupté
• Georgia O’Keeffe’s Ram’s Head White Hollyhock and Little Hills
• René Magritte’s The Son of Man – A great example of surrealism
• Norman Rockwell’s Freedom from Want
• Grant Wood’s American Gothic
• Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks
• Winslow Homer’s Breezing Up
• Vassily Kandinksy’s Circles in a Circle

Reader Roundup

I asked for more examples of classics folks use in their classrooms and got a dozen or so responses. They were so cool I wanted to catalog them here:

• Kimberly @heart4GTkids – Norman Rockwell art for 20th-century lessons
• Casey @mrswikewcsd One the kids enjoy is American Progress, (1872) by John Gast. I reveal the image 1 part at a time from R to L!
• Nicole‏ @nhewitt15 My favorite work to use is Vivaldi’s Four Seasons–very versatile in the classroom for a variety of projects!
• Wanda @WGatcomb My students enjoyed discussing how Bradbury’s The Pedestrian is linked to Fahrenheit 451 as well as Mildred’s motives and more.
• Aicia @Alitig1 I love to teach All Summer in a Day and tie it into an anti-bullying rally call and introducing my sci-fi unit.
• Mrs. Green AIG‏ @MrsGreenAIG Though not a classic to some, I use “Martin” by @zacbrownband to teach metaphors and personification.
• Amy ‏ @aboxberger Thank You, Ma’am by Langston Hughes
• Tanya @tgottlich “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Billy Joel. Write a year in review song to this tune.
• Julie @TheJulieSouth I love using Letter from a Birmingham Jail. So many lessons and ways to analyze
• Janice‏ @janicekollar My favorite primary source doc is Jefferson’s secret message to congress! Great discussion piece
• Mark @markbrittmusic1 My students have been loving using a parachute to learn musical form using ‘Overture to William Tell‘. We also discuss plot.