“Quelle valeur, selon vous, la sculpture réfléchit-elle?” The French-speaking tour guide asks the students.
“Power!” some students mumble.
“La puissance!” junior Lewis Folli responds with excitement. Puissance means power.
Throughout the field trip to the National Gallery of Art on Feb. 28, more than 10 AHS students flexed their French skills by speaking only in French. The tour guide urged the students to respond to her in the language. They had to respond often to questions about the message, methods, and effects of the paintings. After the tour, students were able to wander the museum.
The tour guide emphasized the differences in stroke, color and subject in French paintings ranging from the early 18th century to the early 20th century. Students were made to distinguish impressionist and post-impressionist era pieces based on these three factors.
The National Gallery of Art boasts a young but vibrant collection of works from Monet’s Bridge at Argenteuil to Picasso’s Family of Saltimbanques. The field trip was a much anticipated and long overdue trip for the language department.
“I liked it very much,” junior IB French student Lewis Folli said. “It really enhanced my comprehension of French art movements and French history [in general].”
The French teachers had hoped to expose the students to French culture by immersing them in one of its most elaborate industries. The Gallery’s French art collection includes impressionist and post-impressionist era pieces, and the French are known for starting the impressionist art movement.
“There is something very different [about French art],” French teacher Joelle Rudney said. “The cultural history [of a country] always impacts the art.”
A French language department field trip has not been able to take place for several years.
“There are not too many opportunities, apart from going to a movie, and that’s not too easy [to plan],” Rudney said. “So the French National Gallery was a good place to go.”
The trip complemented this year’s art unit in which IB and level 4 French students learned how to analyze different works of art.
“We’ve taught them how to look at a picture, and that there is usually a message in the picture,” Rudney said. “Hopefully when they go to a museum they’re going to look at the works a little differently; their minds are going to be a little more alert.”
“It [was meant to] brighten their horizons,” French teacher Christiane McConnaughey said.
