Thanksgiving in Fine Art

Introduction
Besides reading the introduction to the student Web activity, students should review material on the Pilgrims in their textbook, on-line, or in an encyclopedia. In this activity, artistic representations of Thanksgiving will give students a sense of how values can vary and how traditions can flourish or subtly change over time.

Lesson Description
Students will find the images of five artists' works at Websites provided for them. Basic information about the work is also listed in the student activity. Students will answer four sets of questions on the art, sometimes comparing two images on a particular point. An activity will require them to summarize the information about the art works, as well as their own responses to the works.

Instructional Objectives:

1. Students will learn about different artists who worked in different time periods. They should be able to see how art can convey different ideas about the same general subject.
2. The contrasting art works should also give students some sense of the many artistic styles, how they vary over time, and how they tend to make a viewer feel content, discomfort, or simply see a subject from a new point of view.

1. Common elements throughout the paintings are food and gratitude for it.
2. The Pilgrims are seated at a table, the Native Americans stand or sit on the ground, possibly suggesting a difference in their status, or that the Native Americans are less "civilized." Most textbooks show Pilgrim gravity, somber dress, and religious dedication, but here the Pilgrims look relaxed and merry; they may even be drinking wine. Looking at this image, students would get a sense that the Pilgrims socialized and had fun-they look pretty much like modern-day Americans at a picnic.
3. Lee's work shows a bustling kitchen scene as a family prepares the feast. One would never know that World War II was going on when the artist worked on this piece, or in fact any sense of an outside world-it is the cozy interior world of a family enjoying itself in timeless fashion. Lee's style suggests something of a Norman Rockwell nostalgia for such times. Lozowich created his print during the Depression and, unlike Lee, he recognizes world realities. During the Depression, some people could only get a Thanksgiving dinner in a soup kitchen. Lozowich's men are not downtrodden because his angle-of view is upward . They look tall and unbowed, proud even though they are suffering.
4. Both works suggest that thankful prayer is the central component of the holiday. Lascari's kneeling figure might easily suggest the attitude of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Her gaze downward is so reverent we cannot miss the message that the earth's bounty is a gift of God. Brownscombe's work has the same message, with Pilgrims from a small village gathered as a community to thank God for his blessings. Lascari's work is the more modern. Although his central figure borrows from Italian Renaissance nativity scenes (not only her posture, but the folds of her garment and of the drapes), the work has several modern elements-these are even more striking because of how they contrast with the traditional Mary image. The modern elements are the mirror giving a backview of the figure, the relative size of the food in the corner, and the fact that food is simply scattered on the floor in the foreground.
5. The students will be able to fill in the first and second columns rather easily. The answers for the remaining columns will vary depending on the students' opinions. Opinions should be justified with rational statements based on the images.

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