The plan of the meeting

T: Good afternoon, dear friends. We’re happy to see you. Let’s start our meeting with a nice poem by Edith Segal

If I were a bird,
I wouldn’t like to be
In a little cage
Where I couldn’t be free.

I’d want to spread
My wings and fly
Over the tree-tops
And into the sky.

I’d visit my friends
Who live very far,
Then I’d fly up high
And sit on a star.

T: Do you like this poem? What is it about?

Ss: It tells us that everybody wants to be free and doesn’t want to live in a cage even if it is very beautiful.

T: And now let’s watch a short video, it’s an extract from musical “Oliver” by British composer Leonello Bart.(Ss watch a video)
Who are the actors? What are they doing? Do you like their acting?

T: Now pay your attention to these pictures on the screen. Do you know their names and the artists who painted them?

(Обучающиеся называют картины и их авторов)

“The Cornfield” by John Constable

“Five Children of King Charles I” by Van Dyck

“Virginia water-large” by William Turner

Mr and Mrs William Hallett (“The Morning Walk”) by Thomas Gainsbourough

”Age of Innocence” by Joshua Reynolds

T: Let’s see what do you know about Van Dyck, J. Constable, W. Hogarth?

S1: Antony Van Dyck is one of the greatest Flemish painters. He was born on the 23d of March, 1599 in Antwerp, Spanish Netherland.

S2: Van Dyck’s portraits are a wonderful illustration to the history of England of the early 17th century. He set a new style and founded the English school of painting.

S3: John Constable was an English Romantic painter. Today John Constable is often considered, along with Joseph Mallord William Turner, one of England’s greatest landscape painters.

S4: William Hogarth was born in 1697 in London. His father was a poor Latin School teacher and textbook writer. Young Hogarth took a lively interest in the street life the metropolis and the London fairs, and amused himself by drawing the characters he saw.

S5: He died in 1764 in London. His friend, actor David Garrick said about him: “He was the great Painter of Mankind”.

T: When we speak about cinema, painting, Literature, architecture, what do we speak about?

Ss: About art.

T: What kind of art are we going to speak today and why?

Ss: We’re speaking about the most brilliant British painters because we’ve learnt about them for a month.

T: Very good! Who do you want to tell us about?
Dear friends, can you see tests on your desks? Be very attentive, listen to your classmates and then you’ll finish them.

(Ss represent their stories about British painters using computer presentations)

S5: Thomas Gainsborough

Thomas Gainsborough was one of the most famous portrait and landscape painters of 18th century Britain.
Gainsborough was born in 1727 in Sudbury, England. His father was a schoolteacher. At the age of fourteen he impressed his father with his pencilling skills so that he let him go to London to study art in 1740. In London he became associated with William Hogarth and his school. In the 1740s, Gainsborough married Margaret Burr. His work, mainly landscape paintings, was not selling very well. He returned to Sudbury in 1748—1749 and concentrated on the painting of portraits.
In 1759, Gainsborough and his family moved to Bath. There he studied portraits of Van Dyck and was able to get high society clients. In 1769 he began to send his works to the Royal Academy's annual exhibitions. He selected portraits of known or notorious clients to attract attention. Exhibitions helped him to gain a national reputation and he was invited to become one of the founding members of the Royal Academy in 1769.
In 1774, Gainsborough and his family moved to London He again exhibited his paintings in the Royal Academy, with portraits of contemporary celebrities, including the Duke and Duchess of Cumberland. These exhibitions continued for the next six years. In 1780, he painted the portraits of King George III and his queen and later received many royal commissions and became the favourite painter of the Royal Family.
In his later years, he often painted landscapes and was one of the originators of the eighteenth-century British landscape school, and one of the dominant British portraitists of the second half of the 18th century. Gainsborough painted more from his observations of nature than using formal rules. He said “I’m sick of portraits, and wish very much to ... walk off to some sweet village, where I can paint landscapes and enjoy the fag end of life in quietness and ease.'
His best works, such as Portrait of Mrs. Graham; Mary and Margaret: The Painter's Daughters; William Hallett and His Wife Elizabeth, and Cottage Girl with Dog and Pitcher, display the individuality of his subjects.
Gainsborough died on the 2 of August in 1778.

S6: Sir Joshua Reynolds (Приложение 1)

Reynolds was the most innovative portrait painter of his generation. He was born in 1723 at Plympton, Devon. His father was a clergyman. Reynold’s maternal great-grandfather was the outstanding mathematician Thomas Baker. All the Reynolds children drew pictures and most of them drew better than Joshua. But Joshua did not get along well at school and so he felt the necessity of doing something else instead.
Reynolds was fascinated by the world of theatre and highly treasured his close friendship with David Garrick and his wife, a ballet dancer. David Garrick was the most famous actor of his day.
Reynolds died in 1792 at the age 68. It is said that in his long life Reynolds painted over 3000 portraits. The loss was great. The poet William Blake wrote on Reynolds death:

“When sir Joshua Reynolds died
All Nature was degraded;
The Kind dropped a tear
Into the Queen’s Ear;
And all his pictures faded…”

S7: Joseph Mallord William Turner (Приложение 2)

Turner is one of Britain’s most celebrated artists, he was perhaps the most Romantic painter in England. He was an innovator whose style has laid the foundation for Impressionism.
Joseph Mallord William Turner was born in 1775; his exact date of birth is unknown. His father was a barber and a wig maker.
The barber Turner was proud of his child, who showed his exceptional artistic talent from an early age and in 1789 Turner’s father placed the boy aged 14 in the Royal Academy School.
Turner was 15 years old when he received a rare honor – one of his paintings was exhibited at the Royal Academy.
In 1819 Turner visited Italy for the first time. He stayed in Venice for only a few days but Venice was the inspiration of some of Turner’s finest work.
Whenever he visited it he studied the effects of sea and sky in every kind of weather. He didn’t record what he saw, Turner translated scenes into a light-filled expression of his own romantic feelings.
He died in 1851. His last words were: “The sun is God”. Turner is still the British most celebrated.

T: Thank you for your interesting stories. You have only 3 minutes to finish your tests about the British artists.

(Ss finish the tests and pass them to the teachers.)

And now it’s time to have a rest. Let’s do puzzle. Work in groups and in 4-5 minutes be ready to name the picture and the artist.

(Ss do puzzles, put them on the blackboard.)

T: Excellent! We’ve spoken a lot about the golden age of English painting. But there are some very important questions we should discuss and try to explain our opinion. Look at the blackboard and read the 1st question.

Questions for discussion:

1. When did art appear? What did ancient people do when they wanted to say “Thank you” to the God or ask him for a help?
2. Can you imagine our life without art? Why? Why not?
3. What feelings do people express with the help of art? (sadness, admiration, love, hope, anger, astonishment)

T: We should say that you’re very thoughtful and hardworking students. Your answers are really very interesting. In November we read and learnt by heart a lot of quotations written by famous people about the role of arts in the people’s society. Let’s see if you remember them. Complete the quotation you have on your desk, put it on the blackboard, read and who does it belong to.

(Ss have a competition. Then read the quotations aloud.)

Quotations:

1. Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist after one grows up. PabloPicasso
2. Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. Oscar Wilde
3. Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced. Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy
4. The whole world without art would be one great wilderness. J. M. W. Turner
5.Painting is but another word for feeling. John Constable

T: Well done! Our meeting is almost over but we have a beautiful gift for our guests. Louis Armstrong sang this song and it was a great success. The song “What a Wonderful World”.

(The girls sing the song.)

Feedback

T: Thank you, girls! We have the last thing to do. Let’s remember what you did in November to get to know the British artists and their paintings?
Was it interesting to you to work in groups? Or did you work individually? Why?
What did you do during the our meeting?

T: Dear friends, thank you for your work. It is a real pleasure to communicate with you. Good bye.

TEST “THE GOLDEN AGE OF ENGLISH PAINTING”

1. The father of Gainsborough was

a) a barber
b) a scientist
c) a schoolteacher

2. In his later years, Gainsborough often painted

a) landscapes
b) ancient castles
c) portraits

3. William Turner was born in 1775, his exact date of birth is

a) the 23rd of April
b) the 23rd of November
c) is unknown

4. W. Turner had had his own studio by the time he was

a)15
b)18
c)24

5. William Turner was an innovator whose style has laid the foundation for

a) historical portrait
b) Impressionism
c) Cubism

6. All the Reynolds children drew pictures … Joshua.

a) worse than
b) as good as
c) better than

7. Reynold’s father was a …

a) barber
b) clergyman
c) outstanding mathematician

8. Antony Van Dyck was born in …

a) England
b) Ireland
c) Spanish Netherland

9. Van Dyck drew

a) portraits
b) landscapes
c) beautiful churches