Gustave Courbet (French, 1819 - 1877) The Source of the Loue, ca. 1864 Oil on canvas, 42 _ x 54 1/8" Collection Albright-Knox Art Gallery George B. and Jenny R. Mathews Fund, 1959

LESSON PLAN: LET’S GO EXPLORING!

INTRODUCTION

Before doing the lesson plan with your students, please be sure to read it all the way through. It can be adapted for any grade level.

SUPPLIES

• four medium-sized boxes with holes in the lids big enough for a hand to fit through
• objects that provide examples of a variety of textures; for example—
• cold things such as metal items
• warm objects such as fabric, cotton, and wood
• squishy things like Gummi Bears, erasers, cooked spaghetti, and grapes
• damp pieces of sponge or paper towel
• other items — be creative!
• glue and/or tape

ACTIVITY 1: INTO IMAGINATION

BEFORE BEGINNING

For younger students, assemble the boxes with the supplies listed above in advance. Place various combinations of objects in each box. We suggest attaching some objects to the sides as well as placing them on the bottom — the students will need to be able to feel each item individually. Test the boxes out on family members or on colleagues in the faculty lounge — the objects shouldn’t be too recognizable when touched! You could cut them into pieces to prevent identification!
Let older students work in groups to assemble their own boxes, with objects they find on their own.

PART I: LET’S LOOK

Ask the class to look at Courbet’s painting very carefully and describe what they see. Once all observations have been made, ask them to put themselves into the painting.

• If they were standing in the rapids, what would they hear? See? Smell?
• What would they feel? Is the water warm or cold?
• Then ask them to pretend to walk up to the rocks and plants — if they touched them, how would they feel?

PART II: LET’S GET READY

Pretend that your class is going to explore Courbet’s cave.
Make a list of all the things you will need and why they are necessary.

PART III: LET’S GO INSIDE!

• Divide your class into four or five groups.
• Give each group a box, and tell them to imagine that it is a cave. For older students, give each group another group’s box.
• Ask them to touch all the items inside and make notes about how they feel.
• Each group will then write a story about a trip into the cave, based on the items in the box and their list of things they need from Part II.
• Ask each student to draw something that his or her group saw or found in the cave.
• As a group, take the drawings and turn them into a group artwork.

ACTIVITY 2: YOUR PLACE AND MINE

Most people have a special place where they like to be. Courbet’s was the landscape around his home town of Ornans, which included the source of the Loue River.

• Ask your students to think about places where they like to go. It could be somewhere outdoors, somewhere in their home, somewhere in school, or another indoor location. It could also be an imaginary place. Don’t tell anyone what the place is.
• Ask the students to draw their place, and write a paragraph about how they feel when they are there.
• When they have finished, ask them to exchange drawings with a classmate.
• Students can then write a descriptive paragraph about the drawing they have in front of them.
• Have the students read the descriptive paragraph aloud while displaying their partner’s drawing. Talk about the descriptive paragraphs as a class, exploring whether the students who did the drawings think their partners’ descriptions are accurate.
• Display the two paragraphs and the drawing together.

ADDITIONAL SUGGESTIONS FOR OLDER CLASSES

• Ask students to write an essay using their place (or another student’s place) as a setting.
• Divide the students into groups. Ask them to choose one student’s place and write a play with that place as a setting or a character.
• Ask students to write a story using Courbet’s cave as a character. They will need to imagine an event that might take place within the cave, and then have the cave be the narrator, describing the event and how the cave might have felt about it.

ADDITIONAL SUGGESTIONS FOR VERY YOUNG CLASSES

• Create a special space right in the classroom – it could even be cavelike. One by one throughout the day, have students sit in the space for a few minutes, thinking about how they feel in it. (Soothing music could even be played quietly in the space; you could use pot pourri or something else to provide pleasant smells.)
• Students can share how they felt in the space through discussion.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION FOR TEACHERS

Gustave Courbet (goo-stahv coor-bay) believed that an artist should only paint things from his or her own world, time, and experience. His bold statement, "I cannot paint an angel because I have never seen one," challenged the traditional beliefs about the most appropriate subject matter for art. In the past, historical events and religious or mythological scenes were considered the highest forms of painting. Denying himself the ability to paint anything other than what he could see, Courbet was limited to the realities of contemporary life. This philosophy became known as realism. It did not mean, however, that scenes were painted realistically (to look exactly like nature), but that all subject matter was taken from the real world and real life.
Although Paris was where an artist in France had to be to establish and maintain a career, Courbet always remained very attached to his native countryside in eastern France. He was born in the town of Ornans, in a region called the Franche-Comté, near the Swiss border. He painted its people in a variety of activities such as enjoying music after dinner, at work, at rest, or at a funeral. He also painted the area’s natural curiosities and geological wonders; in fact, the area’s Jura mountains were the source of the term Jurassic, which was coined in the early nineteenth century to refer to the period of the dinosaurs. This painting is an excellent example of Courbet’s fascination with this aspect of his native countryside.

There are underground streams all over the Franche-Comté because of the porous limestone of the Jura plateau. They rise through the rocks to form the rivers of the region. Some emerge at the tops of cliffs and flow out as waterfalls; others, such as the Loue River, flow out of limestone caves such as the one you see in The Source of the Loue. The water first comes out into a still pool, which you can see just outside the mouth of the cave. Then it turns into rapids, which you can see highlighted flowing over the rocks in the foreground. It then flows quickly but quietly through Courbet’s home town of Ornans, where his family’s house still stands.

Courbet painted many versions of this scene — this is the only one that does not include figures or piers, but focuses solely on the natural elements of the scene. He chose a close-up view of the cave’s dark and mysterious opening with its massive boulders. Courbet put paint on thickly with a palette knife to represent the rough texture of the rock, which he colored in various shades of tan and brown. The shiny quality of the paint, along with the somber colors and contrasts of light and shadow, conveys a cool, damp feeling, and adds to the mystery of the site.

Let’s Go Exploring was written by Nancy Spector and Mariann Smith, and was made possible, in part, through the generous support of the Cameron Baird Foundation, sponsor of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery’s Looking and Learning program.