Painting Under the Table

I was the guest parent at school today, there to teach a lesson on Michelangelo. Now, that Italian Renaissance man would not be my first choice to share with 4 year olds, if only because of the issues of nudity and religion (which can be hot-button issues in schools), but the art project that the teachers wanted to try was too much fun to pass up: they put butcher paper on the underside of a table and the children crawled underneath it, lay on their backs, and drew (we weren't crazy enough to try actual, drippy paint). Just like Michelangelo did for 4 years to create paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

And it was quite a success, though I doubt they'll remember his name! They loved trying to draw "upside-down" but most didn't stay for long, saying it was too hard to draw shapes (triangles and rectangles like the divisions in the Sistine Chapel), as well as figures and animals (inspired by that snake in the scene of Adam and Eve). Bodies, in addition to the process itself, were our main theme today as we explored how Michelangelo depicted the human form, for example his strong, powerful Sibyls (some of the only clothed, non-biblical figures in the whole darned thing and thus some of the only ones I could easily talk about. I mean, really, do you want to show them God and have to answer questions about whether he looks like that or not? My kids would be asking "who is God?" Just don't want to go there in a short presentation!). We also looked at some of his sculptures--the Pieta and David (but only pictured from the waist up in my book). And compared them to the Sibyls--powerful muscles, drapery, color vs. marble, paint vs. sculpture. We even had a piece of Carrara marble so they could feel how hard it was. To wrap up, we played a quick version of "statue come alive," with the children taking turns "sculpting" their partners into various poses.

I tried not to overload them with facts or art historical terms, so we didn't really talk about fresco or the biblical stories or Pope Julius II or the Italian Renaissance. I tried to give an idea of the scale of the ceiling, how long it was, how high off the ground it was, how long it took, how alone he was, how hard it was. I think they got that. They can learn the rest of it later. That's what my colleagues' Art History 101 classes are for!