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Emmanuel... assemblies for Christmas
A musical and dramatic retelling of the Christmas story
Mark Baxter

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Notes for Session D: Art and Spirituality

Aims of the session:

1. What is Spirituality?

Spirituality is about being aware of yourself and the world around you:

Spirituality is about the ‘wow’ factor

Spirituality is about values and beliefs – the big questions

Spirituality is about emotions

N.B. Spiritual Development is an issue for the whole curriculum

How might children’s spirituality be developed and encouraged in the following curriculum areas:
literacy numeracy history geography DT ICT PE
science RE PSHE / citizenship art drama / movement music

2. Art and Spirituality

Visual art was not only one of the earliest forms of religious communication; it was for centuries the main form used for sharing spiritual truths. Protestantism emphasised preaching and reading the Bible, but that did not mean that Christian art ceased to have a function. Art is a way of trying to express the inexpressible, not with words, but with the language of line, colour, shape and texture. Art often captures what words cannot.

3. What makes a work of art religious?

Possible criteria include:

What is the function of art in Christianity?

For teaching – Art can instruct or teach. For example, the wall paintings in medieval churches told the stories of the Christian faith

For significance and meaning – Art rarely just reproduces visual images as a photograph does; it interprets.

Acting as a mirror – Art can not only mirror the world we live in and make people more aware, it can also mirror the human condition: its joys and sorrows.

Stimulation – Art stimulates the emotions and calls for a response.

Communication – Art can communicate at several different levels. It can act directly on emotions and on the factual level.

Awe and wonder – Art can capture one part of creation and hold it up for examination. Such intense looking can lead from adoration of the object to worship of the creator who made it.

Reflecting the creator – The artist creates beauty and order from the chaos of his or her materials. Human creativity is a reflection of the divine power that created the world.

4. What about icons?

An icon is more than a painting. Orthodox Christians and many others see them as a means of devotion. It helps them in their relationship with God. When painting an icon the artist is not free just to use any method. There are rules and traditions to be followed. The icon interprets events and people, it does not just represent them. Icons have borders but no frame because the border serves as a space to separate the holy from the ordinary. Special features of icons include:

Light : the treatment of light is particularly important. Light comes from within the people rather from without.

Significance not realism : icons impress the onlooker with the importance and significance of the event rather than just telling the story.

Two-dimensional style : there is no indication of depth or distance. The painting often appears flat.

Symbolic and abstract not natural : heads are often overlarge and very round with a circle around them indicating holiness. Clothes are stylised. The figures cast no shadows and the colours are often symbolic.

Involvement : the main characters are shown in full-face or 3/4. Eyes are often staring, making direct contact with the onlooker.

Background : little attention is paid to the space the figures inhabit. They often appear to be almost suspended in space. This adds to the otherworldly feeling of the icon.

Arrangement : there is often a rhythmic arrangement of people rather than a natural one. Movements and gestures are expressive.

Perspective : in some icons the optical laws of perspective are reversed. People in the background are often larger and the lines of perspective converge at the front of the painting. This has the effect of reaching out to and involving the onlooker.

5. Questions to ask about pictures

I wonder what you like best about this painting/picture?
I wonder what you think is most important in this painting/picture?
I wonder where you are in this painting/picture or which part of this picture/painting is about you?
I wonder if there is anything in this picture/painting you would leave out but still have all the picture/painting you need?

6. Further questions

What did you like about it?
What did you dislike?
What pictures do you know which are like this?
What does it tell you about Jesus?
What does it say to you about the teaching of Jesus with which it is connected?
What kind of person does the artist show?
What about the traditional images of Jesus? Is this a contrast? If so, how?
Who do you think would like this picture?
Where would it be good to display this picture?
What was the artist trying to say in this picture?
How has the artist used the Bible story about Jesus in this picture?
If you were asked to draw a picture about this story, what approach would you take?
What did this picture making you think about, notice, question or consider?
What else would you like to say about the picture?

7. Ways to work with a picture

a. Cover half or parts of the picture. What do the children expect is coming next? What do they think the picture is about?

b. Look carefully at the symbols in the picture; the position of the figures; the focus of attention; the background; the movement; the perspective; the balance of colour; what clothes the people are wearing; where the light is coming from; the facial expressions of the people; the mood created by the arrangement of people and objects; the position of people's hands; the spaces in the picture; the different objects – why are they there?; the different groupings of people and who is looking where.

c. In effect this picture is a freeze frame – a frozen moment. If you were to interview different people in the frame, what would they say?

d. What title would you give to this picture?

e. Explore why the artist chose to do this picture as a portrait rather than a landscape or vice-versa?

f. Creative a viewfinder and then draw a larger version of the section chosen. What does this detail from the picture add to the whole?

g. What is the message of this painting – can you create a strap line?

8. Activities linked to working with the pictures

Choose describing words to go with the people in the picture
How are the colours linked to feelings and moods in the picture?
Link the picture to some music or create sounds that will go with this picture
Act out the story – as a mine, drama or sound recording for radio
Create your own living tableaux of this picture and then take a digital photograph. Compare the photo and the painting.
Write your own modern-day version of this story
What speech bubbles would you put with the people in the picture?
Turn the story into a poem: perhaps a cinquain (five lines and each line is respectively 2,4,6,8,2 syllables; or kennings; coat hanger poems; poems with parallelisms like in the psalms
Assign the characters of the story to different children or groups of children and tell the story in a continuous narrative
Choose 6 keywords to describe the story
Draw a DVD/video screen and work out which other moments before and after story you would choose to focus on, say for a poster or advert.
Interview the characters in a chat show format
The children mime and then freeze as you retell the story
Write a newspaper report about the story
Create shapes for sounds in the painting
Write calligrams, which are words written in a shape and a colour that shows their meaning
Write lines consecutively in pairs about the picture - relay writing
Describe the story like a recipe
Explore the children's feelings about the picture

9. A possible sequence for dealing with the pictures

a. Observing and expressing ideas about the picture
Ask the children to work in small groups with one picture. They need to be told to imagine that they know nothing about what is happening. No information is given. It is just a picture. The emphasis is on examining the picture using the imagination freely and not about getting right answers. You may need to actively resist the temptation on the part of the children to think the picture is religious. Children should be asked to observe closely and ask questions about the picture - they could annotate around a photocopy of it. The children should then give a presentation as if they were talking to members of the public about the picture - like tour guides in an Art Gallery. Give this presentation to the rest of the class.

b. Entering the scene and exploring the picture
Working in the same groups as before, but this time with a different picture than the first. Look at the different characters in the picture. What are the characters thinking, saying and feeling? What emotions are present? What feelings, thoughts and emotions arise within the children? If they were to be a character in that picture what would they be seeing? Or what would they be feeling? Or what would they be thinking about the other characters in the scene?

The children need to agree about what is happening and create thought or speech bubbles for some of the people in the picture. Attach these to a photocopy. The children should feedback ideas to the class. The Teacher may prompt with further questions such as:
Why do you think he/she is saying that? Why did you choose these people? What do you think is going to happen next? Why?
Encourage the children to explain how the colours, light, gestures and expressions have influenced their ideas.
The children could produce a freeze frame of the picture that can be brought alive by the teacher interviewing individuals.

c. Translating
Now retell the actual story that lies behind the pictures. Invite the children to discuss how their ideas were similar to or different from the story.
Children could consider: which moment in the story the painting is showing? Can they decide on a title for the picture?

Could the children create music to complement each scene based on the information they now have?
Explore with the children what the painter was trying to show or say? This can lead to a discussion again about the use of colour, light, gestures and expressions etc.. What do the children now think was being said compared with their first thoughts? Take one character from one of the pictures and discuss as a group all the things they can discover about that person and what the artist may be trying to say about him/her in the way they have painted him/her.