2024-25 Summer Term

 

Year 3 & 4

Byzantine Monuments

This unit, looking at monuments of the Byzantine empire (also known as the Eastern Roman Empire), is a continuation of the work carried out in Spring B in the unit Monuments of Ancient Rome. The children revise what they know about ancient Rome and then learn about how the empire split in two. They start by studying the famous mosaic of Constantine and Justinian at the Hagia Sofia in Istanbul in lesson 1.

In lesson 2/3, the children go on to learn in more detail about the history of the Hagia Sofia (built by Justinian, first used as a church, then as a mosque, then as a museum and now as a mosque) looking in detail at the richly coloured Byzantine patterns used in it. They create their own Byzantine-style patterns using watercolour and gold/silver acrylic paint over the course of 2 lessons.

In lessons 4/5 the children study the renowned mosaics of Ravenna in Northern Italy, which was for a few short years the centre of the Byzantine empire, focussing on depictions of Justinian and his wife Theodora. They create their own mosaic portraits using paper, focussing on how to show different skin tones, revising work done in year 2 on self-portraits. Finally, in lesson 6 they look at icons, first painted during the Byzantine period and still painted today, learning how these are used for prayer and reflection.

 

Year 5 & 6

Impressionism 

The impressionists were a group of painters in France who exhibited pictures together in the 1870s and 1880s. Their work is crucial in understanding modernism in painting, explored in the last unit of year 6. This unit introduces the impressionists through the work of Monet in lesson 1, exploring how they broke from the norm by painting outside (en plein air), using rapid brushwork and painting landscapes showing the transient effects of the weather. By looking at the work of Renoir in lesson 2 the children learn how the impressionists used developing scientific knowledge to inform the way they painted. They then look at paintings by Renoir and Degas in lesson 3 to explore how the impressionists were concerned with painting everyday life, rather than grand portraits or historical subjects.

Lessons 4 and 5 explore the work of three important artists, seen as post-impressionists: Cezanne, Van Gogh and Gauguin. Study of the work of Cezanne, considered by some to be the ‘father’ of modern art, focusses on his distinctive brushwork seen in paintings of Mont Sainte-Victoire which he painted many times. The children replicate his patchy brushwork using collage to create their own picture of the mountain. The children then explore, how Van Gogh painted from nature and used colour and brushwork to express and convey emotions, whilst Gauguin used intense light and colour in his paintings but rejected painting from nature and used his imagination instead.

Finally, in lesson 6 the children look at the work of Cassatt an impressionist painter who painted many pictures of domestic scenes of women and children, and was influenced by Japanese wood-cuts.