Modest Petrovitch Moussorgsky (1839-1881) wrote, "Art is a means of communicating with people, not an end in itself." In this lesson, students explore art as communication by first viewing and discussing a painting from various perspectives, and analyzing the painting's purpose, audience, form and function. During a real or virtual trip to an art gallery, students use a graphic organizer to record detailed observations about paintings they see, viewed from multiple perspectives. After discussing their observations, they identify a corresponding literary term for each of the terms used to analyze the art form. They then use an online tool to compare how the process of writing is similar to the process of creating art. Finally, they use their ideas to write a compare and contrast essay.
Though these activities were designed to compare writing with Impressionism, they could be adapted to any art form.