Students will consider the ways that artists respond to political and social events and ideas; think about sources of inspiration; learn about symbols and think about what they represent.

Students will consider the choices artists make with regard to painting. They will focus on line, material, scale, and the artistic process; learn how to discuss, compare, and think critically about nonrepresentational, or abstract, paintings; think about the use of line in painting.

Students will be able to identify architectural elements in paintings; compare different vantage points in paintings; discuss methods of representing a three-dimensional building in a two-dimensional painting; and write an essay exploring the use of spaces or perspective in a painting.

Students will examine three images that represent different ways that artists, in the years between World War I and World War II, responded to the social and political turmoil around them; discuss these images in terms of subject matter, composition, style, and representation.

Students will discuss the ways paintings and prints created during the interwar years reflect changes to the landscape; visually analyze landscape images, using such terms as background, fore-ground, middle ground, medium, and composition; consider the different ways artists responded to the changing landscape.

Students will examine three works of art to learn about the daily lives of working ballet dancers in Paris in the 19th century.

Students will be introduced to works of art that address constructions of identity in a consumer society; explore the roles memory plays in the creation and evolution of identity.

Students will analyze the symbols used in geographic maps; consider the impact of cultural, historical, and political contexts on mapping; compare and contrast maps in diverse mediums made by artists from different geographic and cultural backgrounds.

Students will explore the varied meanings of “identity; learn how irony and satire can function in a work of art; discover how maps can be used to chart not only geography but also psycho-logical, emotional, and intellectual states.

Students will learn how artists explore personal, cultural, and national identity through materials, process, and tradition; see how contemporary artists have adapted historic, culturally specific art-making practices to the present day; begin to consider the role of politics and religion in contemporary art.

The Art of Illumination project is a great way for students in grades 5-12 to experience the medieval process of illumination as authentically as possible. After researching the history, people, and art of the Medieval Ages, students will have the opportunity to create an illuminated text of their own.

This article explains the artistic interaction betwen the Islamic world and Europe and Asia. The technical aspects of calligraphy, painting, and bookbinding are important facets of the study of Islamic art.

These porcelains from the collections of the Freer Gallery are part of a 1,500-year-old tradition of making porcelains in Jingdezhen, China. Porcelain production during the Kangxi period (1662–1722) expanded China’s export trade with Europe, sparked the Chinamania craze in the nineteenth century, and bolstered the East-West exchange that endures to this day.

The Smithsonian 3D Program is a small group of technologists working within the Smithsonian Institution's Digitization Program Office. We focus on developing solutions to further the Smithsonian's mission of “the increase and diffusion of knowledge” through the use of three-dimensional scanning technology, analysis tools, and our distribution platform.

This work is already transforming core functions of our museums. Researchers in the field can now come back not only with specimens, but also 3D data documenting entire sites. Curators and educators are using 3D data as the basis for telling stories and sending students on quests of discovery. Conservators are using 3D data to track the condition of a collection item over time using 3D deviation analysis tools, showing exactly what changes have occurred to an object.

This is the first lesson in a sequential unit. Students view ceramic vessels from different time periods and cultures, and discuss their meanings, functions, and original contexts. They develop criteria for value and meaning of these objects, and create a timeline to situate the objects in history.

This lesson is part of a sequential unit. Students are tested on what they learned about the history of ceramic forms in "Ceramics: A Vessel into History—Lesson 1." They start work on a personal clay vessel that has a specific use or meaning in their contemporary culture, which could be discerned through study by future archeologists and art historians.

This lesson is part of a sequential unit. Students begin work on a ceramic vessel, which they designed in "Ceramics: A Vessel into History—Lesson 2." They discuss their artistic choices and identify elements derived from historical examples while considering how artists appropriate ideas from earlier artists.

Students will look at Oldenburg's "Late Submission to the Chicago Tribune Architectural Competition of 1922: Clothespin" and discuss scale, function, and form. Students will consider Oldenburg's reimagining of every day objects into monumental works of art. Students will then create their own "late submissions" for the world's most beautiful office building.

Students examine and analyze two sculptures located in New York City's Financial District that have artists and art appreciators locking horns in a sticky debate about art, commercial intent and public spaces.

Students will:

* Learn about The Highrise of Homes Project and James Wines (architect) and his design firm SITE (Sculpture in the Environment).
* Work in groups as "city planners" and "architects" to create a proposal for a home construction.
* Research examples of high-rise housing by other architects and compare them to the Highrise of Homes project and high-rise housing where you live.

From Creative Living: Residential Architecture in MoMA's Collection: The Curved House--Endless House
Project (unbuilt). 1950-60

Students will:

* Learn about The Endless House project and Frederick Kiesler (the architect).
* Compare the Endless House with other homes from this guide and in your neighborhood.
* Build the Endless House
* Research Kiesler's vision for the Endless Theater.