Post-visit Lesson 1                                       Go Figure: Language Arts   

Miami Art Museum Presentation                                                                                                                  PaineWebber

                                                                                            Tansey and the Double-Image                                         by Amy Scott

                                                                                              Dade County Public Schools  

By Mark Tansey’s own admission, his “paintings can, at first reading, be viewed within a range of conventional

plausibility, but there is a moment, at the edge of expectations, where one  may notice that something is not

quite right.  That’s where the picture really begins.”  Rather than realistic cages, his post-modernist paintings are

 “places of inquiry” where painting, illustration, and photography freely mix, where forms are replicated in pun

 and paradox, and where the human figure struggles to fathom an increasingly complex world fraught with multiple

meanings. 

     The human figure is possibly the most complicated conceivable subject, and Tansey is master of placing the

 individual in the center of the universe, questing for meaning. In one painting, Close Reading, a woman scales

a perilous cliff of rhetoric; while in another, Mont Sainte-Victoire, soldiers backed by mountains are transformed

 through watery images to women emerging from a cave. Yet another fascinating study occurs in Robbe-Grillet

Cleansing Every Object in Sight where the author attempts (an impossible task) to brush meaning off the objects

 that litter the landscape.  Finally, in  White on White Inuits and Bedouins come towards each other.  The white

of sand and snow are indistinguishable, making two disparate cultures and climates seem compatible. Many of

Tansey’s human forms function as metaphor; some simply exist to raise questions, while still others border on 

moral statement.  In all his work, men and women struggle to “read” the text of the world around them, first

through the senses and then, failing that, somewhere in a realm beyond. Tansey’s human subjects (like Plato’s

 poet-philosophers) manage to break their chains and discard the “illusion” of reality for a purity of vision only

 obtained outside the realm of the material world. To this end, his paintings are fraught with contradictions,

double-image puns, and impossibilities. For Tansey, art discourse (like the human quest for knowledge)  results

 from “ the clash of representations.”  

Objective -  The student will be able to use figurative language to extract meaning from a specific work of art.

Materials -   Slide or original of Mark Tansey’s Discarding the Frame

Procedure - Tansey describes many of his paintings as metaphors.  For him the picture functions as a question,

 picture making as questioning.  After viewing Mark Tansey’s painting Discarding the Frame, the students will

answer the related questions in the spaces provided. The results of their “decoding” should be fashioned into a

finished poem. Have them provide a new title of  their own making.

Evaluation - Have the students read their poem to the class. Were their titles similar? What metaphors did they use?

   Mark Tansey's:  Discarding the Frame

                                                                                                                         

Worksheet                     Forms and Re-Formations                  Go Figure:PaineWebber

 

Name __________________________________                        Date ______________________

 Directions: After viewing Mark Tansey’s Discarding the Frame, answer the following questions in the spaces provided.  After completing the questions, fashion a poem from your observations.  Provide your poem with an appropriate title that matches your poem’s content.

 

1.     What is the setting:   __________________________________________________________

 

2.     Who is present?  What are they doing?  _____________________________________________________________

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3.     What is the problem? Are they in a crisis? ____________________________________________________________

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4.  Their task could best be compared to  _______________________________________________________________

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5.     Will they be successful in their quest? Why or why not?

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6.     What title would you provide for this work?

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7.     Write a poem based upon your responses on the back of this paper. Provide a new title.