 |
| By H and L Grade 8 |
When I observe my students using text
in the art, I sometimes reveal to them that once upon a time I
strongly discouraged using “words” on art. “Real artists,” I
would declare, “don't write on their art.”
How silly. Just look at Renaissance
artist Albrecht Durer's Rhinoceros!
| Albrecht Durer, 1515 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%BCrer%27s_Rhinoceros |
Using text in art is nothing new.
I think art teachers discourage
“writing on art” because their taste dictates this. But a child's
aesthetic is different from adults'. Teens especially find words
very compelling and frequently incorporate words into their art.
Here, British painter John Walker
struggles with this issue:
“In college, text was taboo to put in
paintings. But I was looking around at what was going on. The first
paintings with text that I noticed were David Hockney paintings. And
then Pop art burst onto the scene....”
 |
| David Hockney, Pearblossom Highway, 1986, photographic collage (http://tinyurl.com/9tjhj5j ) |
Which brings me to
the beautiful series of work underway by two 8th graders
in my class. One girl started it – trying to get some feelings out
one day she said. Another joined in and now the two are
collaborating on several pieces. Some are paintings of song lyrics,
they tell me. What is interesting to me is that the words themselves
are functioning almost like art media – the paintings are being
built from them. Selective use of color, scale and line-quality add
to the richness of these paintings, as words are layered one upon the
other until the work feels complete.
So, text in art is nothing new - but it occurs to me that the word text has taken on a whole new meaning to teens.What impact will today's understanding of text and texting have have on artmaking I wonder?
