To complete this assignment, you need to go the National Gallery of Canada on Sussex Drive. You should leave yourself about three hours to be in the gallery. The entrance fee to the permanent collection is $3.00 for youths. The museum is open late only on Thursdays but it is free After 5PM that day.

1. As you approach the art gallery, you will see a large, spindly sculpture outside the main doors. It is of a spider with a sac of eggs under its abdomen.
(a) What is your initial reaction upon seeing this piece?
(b) Do you think initial reaction is a very important quality in art?

Be sure to walk around the work, under the work and to touch the work.
(c) Has your reaction to this work changed?

Louise Bourgeoise is the artist of this piece. Go into the gallery and find out what it is called.
(e) Do you believe the piece is appropriately titled? Why or why not?

(f) Do you believe that having possible varied responses to this work is a weakness or a strength?
(g) What if the work inspires an emotional response completely different from the intentions of the artist? Does this make the artwork more or less successful? Explain your answer.

Go into the museum, pay your admission. After paying, walk up the ramp to the atrium.

Go into gallery A101- FIRST FLOOR- Canadian Art.

Art through the Years
2. As you move from A102 to A112, the nature of these Canadian works of art changes. Paying special attention to EACH of the following aspects: (a) subject (what the painting is about), (b) style, (c) use of colour (d) use of materials and (e) brushstrokes, describe how you notice art has changed through history.

3. What broad trends do you see happening to art through the years?

Art as a way of knowing historical, social and economical trends
4. Study the work entitled The Port of Halifax situated on Level I in room A104.
(a) What knowledge can the painting tell you about the time period? How does it do this?
(b) Choose one other work of art from any of the A galleries and state what historical, social, and economic knowledge you could learn from that work. Be sure to say the name of the work of art and the gallery it is in.

Finding Meaning in Art
5. Find the central room with the water reflecting pool in it and the vaulted ceiling.
(a) Explore the room with each of your senses (except taste). Which part of the room appeals most to you? Why?

6. Art asks us to find our own meaning at times. Find the large work Pavane by Canadian artist Jean-Paul Riopelle in gallery A112 and sit in the seats provided.
(a) How is the artist trying to convey meaning?
(b) What is your interpretation of Pavane?

Nature, Mathematics and Art
After you are through gallery A114, look in on the garden of impatiens flowers and ferns. There is a metal piece of art which looks like DNA. You are allowed to play with this if you choose. Cross the gardens and look at a fern.

7. (a) Is nature itself art? If so, does that mean everything is art?

Pictures of ferns have been created by artists using mathematical patterns from chaos theory called fractals.
(b) Do you think computers alone can create REAL art or are people required to create art?

Architecture
Next to the fern garden is the now reconstructed Rideau Street Convent Chapel. Sit in it for a moment to rest.

8. (a) Do you think this chapel has a rightful place in an art gallery? Why or why not?
(b) What qualities do you think buildings need to be called good architecture?
(c) Excluding Parliament Hill, Chateau Laurier and the National Gallery of Canada, name one building in Ottawa you consider art and one building you think is not art. Explain.

Inuit Art

9. After leaving the Rideau Chapel, exit the A galleries the way you came in and you will find some stairs leading down to the Inuit galleries where you will find some sculpture. Walk around the three small galleries.
(a) Relate the Inuit use of materials in art to their spirituality.
(b) Find The Shaman's Vision (1999). What is your interpretation of this work?

Leave the Inuit galleries and go back up the stairsand along the hall to the contemporary art section on the first floor. On your way there you will notice some large white panels explaining the elements of technique and composition in Renoir's exhibition.
10. Do you think these kinds of explanations affect your understanding of the art itself?

Now continue into the contemporary art section on the first floor. You will know you are there if you see Andy Warhol's Brillo Boxes on the left side.
11. In gallery B107(on your right and down a bit), find the exhibit called Zidane - a 21st Century Portrait. Go inside and view the exhibit for a bit. What art do you think the artist was trying to capture? Explain with examples.

What is ‘Good’ Art?
12. As you wander through the contemporary galleries on the first and second floors, select a work of art that leaves you puzzled at best. Write down the title and the artist. Research the piece at the library or on the internet, or speak to an art expert to understand the artist and the intended message.
(a) Does this new information change your appreciation for the piece? Explain by referring specifically to the artist’s intention and the specific work.

In your contemporary gallery wanderings, choose two pieces of work you consider to be ‘good’ and two you consider bad art.
(b) Identify the pieces and state the criteria you consider to be important in making ‘good’ contemporary art.

Proceed to the second level gallery into the European and American sections of the permanent collection. Many of the style, colour, subject, brushstroke and materials patterns displayed in the Canadian galleries below are replicated here. In these galleries are many important works of art by some of the most famous artists in the world.

The Use of Symbols in Visual Art
As students of English literature, you are aware of the use of symbols in novels you have studied. It probably doesn’t surprise you then that visual artists also intentionally include symbols in their work. In gallery C204 you will find a work of art entitled As the Old Sing, the Young Pipe. Study this work. There is an interesting analysis of the symbols used in this painting. Read the analysis carefully.

13. Does your understanding of the symbols enrich your understanding of the painting? If so how? If not, explain your answer.

14. Revisit a work of art that you have seen today that may have contained symbols that you failed to understand as you passed by the first time. Some common examples of symbols are those written up in the As the Old Sing, the Young Pipe piece. Others include: the hourglass representing the passage of time. Fresh cut flowers; youth and vitality, rotting fruit or wilting flowers: old age.
(a) Write the title and the artist of the work you are revisiting.
(b) Think about the piece and attempt a symbolic analysis of this work.
(c) Does thinking about art create knowledge? Or is it all merely opinion?

Experiencing Art
15. A work of art to experience is the ‘infamous’ Voice of Fire by Barnett Newman in C214. Stare at either blue edge of the painting (where they meet the wall) until a bright white line starts to come into view. This can take a minute or two. Then look at the red stripe in the middle…
(a) Did you see the ‘voice of fire’?
(b) If you did not, does that make the work of art less great?

Artistic Reputation
16. Browse through the works of art from the gallery room C215.
(a) Write down the name of the most famous artist (to you).
(b) Do you think the famous artist’s work is superior to the less famous artists in the same room? If not, whose work is better?
(c) Why are some artists more famous than others?
(d) Do you think an artist’s fame and reputation is important in how people judge art?

Final question
17. If your portrait were to be displayed in this Art Gallery, what would be your preferred time period and media? Why? Describe how it would look and any specific details you would include.

The most important aspect of this summer assignment is not to turn everybody in the IB program into art specialists but to ask that each student spend some time sincerely exploring and considering art as a way of knowing. Individual opinions and answers are essential here. Each student’s reflections are just as valid as the next.

P.S. The assignment is due at the start of the third week of school which is the week of the 17th - 21st. If you have difficulty completing the assignment because you were out of town the whole summer, then please see your TOK teacher on the first day of school.

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