Project: Compare and Contrast

Hefty 2-Ply

Veiled Lady

Take a moment to look at these two images.

Seem pretty different at first glance, don't they? What if I told you these two pieces actually have a lot in common? Don't believe me do you? You're probably thinking, "Elisabeth, what on earth does a trash bag have to do with one of the most beloved sculptures at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts? The one is a beautiful marble carving, and the other is literally full of garbage." 

Appearances can be deceiving: that trash bag is actually carved out of marble too, and is currently on display at the Walker as part of the Lifelike exhibit. They may have been created almost 100 years apart, but both of these sculptures have similar techniques and ideas behind them. I didn't even realize this until a friend of mine pointed it out to me. In both works, the artists are showing off their skill by fooling your eye. They're both pushing the limits of the medium, making your brain think it's another material. The Veiled Lady looks like her head covering might flutter in the slightest breeze; Hefty 2-Ply seems as if it's about to fall over or burst at the seams. They're both very much products of their day, created out of the trends and fads of their respective time periods.

And yet these two pieces are also quite different as well. The Veiled Lady was created around 1860 by an Italian sculptor, Raffaelo Monti, known for his delicately carved work. The Veiled Lady seems like she might float away on a strong breeze. Monti's sculpture is romantic and alluring, showcasing the beauty of a woman with a veil over her face and flowers in her hair. His work is part of the Romanticism movement. 

In 1979, the Walker commissioned the American artist Jud Nelson to create a piece for their permanent collection. He decided to recreate a garbage bag filled with trash and spent the next two years carving it out of marble. Nelson is known for making hyper realistic sculptures of mundane things. He makes people see every day objects in a new light. I think his work relates to the ideas in the Pop Art movement.

At first, these two sculptures might not seem like they have anything in common, being created almost a century apart and as part of different art movements. And yet there are many ways in which they relate to each other, not just because they're made from the same material, but also by playing with viewers' perception of what's real.

Okay, so what I just did is known as Compare and Contrast. It's one of the most basic and commonly assigned essays any art student has to write. I did a very pared down version for you, but it's basically the same format whether someone is writing one page or ten pages:

Introduce the two pieces. 

Say what's different about them. 

Now how are they similar? (or vice versa) 

Conclusion. 

Each of those sentences could be a paragraph or a page, it's really based on how much detail you want/need to go into. And you don't have to get fancy or do a lot of research either. I looked up both of these sculptures starting with Google, then moved on to their respective museum websites. I could have gotten pretty much the same information by partaking in tours at the Walker and Minneapolis Art Institute as well. 

The reason I classified this post under the Project heading is because it's easy to replicate and is just as important to art education as creating work. Doing this exercise helps refine thinking and observation skills. It's also helpful for students to reflect on what they know by not just repeating facts. I always found in school that something stuck better when I wrote or talked about it rather than simply studying for a test. 

And this assignment can be adjusted for any grade level and doesn't have to be about ART per say. A kindergartner can say what the similarities and differences are between oranges and apples. Elementary students can paste images on a poster and write a list. Junior and senior high students can do research and write essays of varying depth. From personal experience, college students write 12 page term papers utilizing this same basic idea. 

Your kids could pick two comic book or video game characters, images from an art history textbook, clothing by two different fashion designers, pieces on display in a museum, etc. I think you get the idea. In a nutshell, it's what two things have in common and what they don't and providing some proof to back it up.