Picasso’s Still Life with Chair Caning, 1912 (Musee Picasso, Paris)
October 1st, 2006
My fortune cookie today was uncanny, “Old associates lead to new adventures.” It was discarded after a lunch celebrating a terrific collaborative effort between myself, Eric Feinblatt and Beth Harris. We met together just an hour or so prior to our scheduled presentation in FIT’s CET (Center for Excellence in Teaching – our technology lab for faculty development). We were scheduled to discuss uses of multimedia in teaching and we were prepared to discuss exploratory work we had done using a variety of tools in the context of our own courses. These tools include Flickr, podcasting (using Audacity), and some preliminary work done with Camtasia. But Beth, in a flash of brilliance, suggested that we combine Camtasia with ARTstor’s OIV (offline image viewer) to move beyond the podcasts we’d already created at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for our online courses. We quickly settled on Picasso’s Still Life with Chair Caning as our initial victim. This, because I will soon be covering it in my online course, and I have found this collage especially difficult to adequately convey to my students. In our podcasts, Beth and I had stood before a painting in the museum, IPod with mic attachment in hand, and offered our students a spontaneous conversation about the work of art. What resulted was an unscripted discussion with a wonderful sense of discovery as each of us prompted the other to look anew.
So the three of us sat down and we were now able to go significantly further than we’d been able to in the museum. Thanks to the OIV, some forethought, and Google, we were able to significantly reinforce our discussion with collateral images. Further we were able to zoom in and record our mouse movements–used largely as a pointer. This is an important advantage over simply placing descriptive text near the image and hoping the student can connect the two. The result, like with the podcasts, was an easy give and take that was meant to model for our students, the ways they might begin to freely explore works of art.
As the three of us went to lunch after the presentation, we mused that if we created a Camtasia file with subsidiary documentary material, our students or anyone with a video IPod could stand in front of a painting in a museum and not only hear our analysis but also see sketches, variations and other supporting materials, truly creating a classroom without walls.
To watch, click here.
January 22nd, 2007 at 7:30 pm
I never have really understood Picasso before now. Thank you for so eloquently describing and SHOWING the artwork along with the real life objects that he is representing. What a great use of technology! We need more art history instructors like you!
February 14th, 2007 at 8:43 am
I’m doing 6th form (I think that would be 11th grade in the USA?) Art and I found this absolutely fantastic for a research project I was working on. It was fascinating (very important for people with short attention spans like me!) and it made obvious many details of the painting that were not initially recognisable. I liked the fact that there were several points of view, instead of just one.
March 17th, 2007 at 11:13 am
What a wonderful experience! You make understanding the artist and their artwork a pure joy. I feel enlightened due to the experience and have a desire to learn more. Thanks!
April 3rd, 2007 at 12:11 pm
[...] smARThistory Blog Archive Picasso s Still Life with Chair 2 Responses to Picasso s Still Life with Chair Caning, 1912 (Musee Picasso, Paris) Kristen Mastel Says: January 22nd, 2007 at 7:30 pm. I never have really understood Picasso before now. [...]
July 27th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
Terrific analysis of this painting. I taught art history for 30 years, both
in a high school and at university levels. This is exactly the kind of class
discussions we would have. Most of the time I would just sit back and
have the students respond. Their blunt honesty could be wonderfully
astute, surprising even themselves. Your presentation made me want to
get back into the classroom. Thank you.
November 30th, 2007 at 5:23 am
I am an arts and culture student (fourth year) in st. catharines ontario – enjoyed this conversation very much & found it very helpful… thanks
December 9th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
Thanks for putting together such an effective presentation. I haven’t enjoyed the idea of studying art as much as I did prior to viewing the video.
September 2nd, 2009 at 5:47 am
Hey, I’m studying art (australia) and found this really fascinating and helped get my head around picasso paintings and combining elements in a painting in general. such a great way to teach. I was wondering if you had any other similar podcasts/videos discussing paintings. i’ve never used this site before, so i wouldnt no wear to start looking!
fantastic job!
one last thing…is it possible to download the video for ipods etc?
September 3rd, 2009 at 5:55 am
Hi Katherine, visit http://www.smarthistory.org for lots more videos! And yes – they are available on iTunes or check the “videos by location” page on smarthistory.org – you can download from there too.
February 5th, 2010 at 12:44 pm
i didnt get cubism before but thanks to website i understand this cool painting