Pre-Raphaelites, Part 2: Milliais' Waterfall

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was a group of artists formed by John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt and Dante Gabriel Rossetti in 1848 after their dissatisfaction with the Royal Academy's style of art. 

The Waterfall was painted in 1853 when he and his brother were invited by John Ruskin and his wife Effie to join them for a vacation in Scotland. Effie is the lady in the painting. According to the Delaware Art Museum, 

Ruskin saw Millais as the artist who achieved the Ruskinian ideal of 'Truth to nature.'

After sharing this with them, we looked closely at The Waterfall and they decided that this scene was very pleasant. With this in mind, I asked my young artists to close their eyes and imagine a scene in nature that brought them happiness or peace or was some scene they wished to see. Then I asked them to put a person in their mind's picture. I then asked them to open their eyes and try to capture that scene on paper. Here are their results:

"A Pleasant Day at the Beach with Ice Cream Truck" -student, age 7

"Makes me drowsy when I think about it." -student, age 11

This student, age 16, chose to show that someone was in her scene by only showing the foot showing out from the tree.

Here is my "Watching the Railroad". I too decided to show my person in the picture by just the back of the head.

I find that it is very encouraging for them when I do the assignment with them because they can see that they don't have to be a great artist...after all the teacher isn't.