Grades/Level: Middle School (6–8), High School (9–12)
Subjects: Visual Arts
Time Required: Short Activity
2 - 2 1/2 hours (20 minutes for each activity)
Author: J. Paul Getty Museum Education Staff

Activity Overview

Students search art objects at the Getty Center in these five detective activities for clues about the people in the past who used them and the world in which they lived.

Learning Objectives

Students should be able to:
• form a hypothesis about changes in values over time, by comparing works of art from different time periods.
• hypothesize about how an object was used by studying its form.
• analyze a work of art and use what they learn to make hypotheses about the culture that made it.

Materials

• 5 activities — download them individually, or all together
• Itinerary

Activity Steps

1. Review the five activities. Each chaperoned group will do the first five activities in a different order. All students do Show What You Know last. On the day of your tour, students will use the Itinerary sheet to note the order you give their group to do the activities. You can delete activities if you need to.

2. Print out and make photocopies of all activity sheets for each student.

Below is a description of each activity:

Italian Painting — Students compare works of art made in Italy, but at different times, to discover clues to the way people lived at different moments in history. They learn that change in artistic style can give them clues to the ways a society changes its understanding of the world.

Portrait Study — Students study various portraits to learn about the paintings' subjects.

Courtly Styles — Students learn to identify the characteristics of rococo- and neoclassical-style furniture and think about what ideals these two styles convey.

Detail Detective — Students observe details of furniture and form a hypothesis about its purpose and the people who made it.

Show What You Know — Students review all the activities they did at the Museum and reflect on what they learned.