Lesson 5 (20th May 2014)

Today we had a very interesting lesson. We started at Sint Baafskathedraal which is a famous Cathedral in Gent containing lots of beautiful religious artworks – including the famous ‘Het Lam Gods’ by the Van Eyck Brothers. We were told lots of interesting facts about the painting, especially the missing panel. The church was beautiful and I was really fascinated with it’s layout due to the fact I am studying to be a primary school teacher of Catholic Schools, and it was good to get a chance to see how a church could be explored with children from an artistic point of view.

We were given a card from a board game and told to find something in the church that is similar to the card ( a great idea to do with children). This is the card Kelly and I were given:

We agreed that Catholic symbolism could be seen in the baby’s cradle to the story of Jesus, and it’s white colour portrayed the innocence of the child. We found a statue of Mary holding Jesus as a baby to link this too. Unfortunately we weren’t permitted to take any photographs inside of the Cathedral to show evidence of this. We also linked the trees in the picture to the view that God created nature and there was a patchwork quilt of a tree inside the church to match this with.

After visiting the Cathedral we went to the Design Museum. On the way to the museum we walked through the city and found out some interesting facts about Gent, and it’s design. We thought about the word ‘design’ and what it meant. Everything that we can see in this city and everywhere in the world has been designed by someone. The museum was a great way for us to see this. My favourite part of the museum was the James Dyson exhibition, a British inventor and industrial designer. He invented the bagless vacuum cleaner. These vacuum cleaners are very popular at home in Ireland.

On the way round the museum we were given a sheet to fill in and it was filled with ideas for how we would explore museums with young children. This was extremely beneficial.

I have to say over the past few months I have really enjoyed these Art Classes, i have gained a new confidence in teaching Art and can’t wait to get home and put this into practice!