LEZIONE CLIL RIGUARDANTE L`ARTE ELLENISTICA

LEZIONE CLIL RIGUARDANTE L’ARTE ELLENISTICA
(strutturata da Claudia Molteni – IISS Greppi, Monticello)
É VIETATA LA PUBBLICAZIONE DELLA LEZIONE SU QUALSIASI TIPO DI TESTO
La lezione si sviluppa in tre attività una legata all’altra.
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Consegno il foglio con le sei sculture ellenistiche a cui manca il titolo
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Consegno il foglio con la descrizione delle sculture: i ragazzi devono leggere e capire le
descrizioni e abbinare ogni descrizione alla statua, scrivendo il titolo sotto l’immagine
(PRIMA ATTIVITA’). Agli studenti bisogna dire di leggere con attenzione ogni
descrizione e cercare di ricordare cosa vi è scritto.
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Il foglio con le descrizioni deve essere messo via. Si consegna un terzo foglio su cui sono
scritte le richieste.
SECONDA ATTIVITA’: gli studenti devono rispondere alle domande (due per ogni
scultura) che si riferiscono ai testi letti precedentemente.
TERZA ATTIVITA’: : gli studenti hanno a disposizione un elenco di aggettivi, per ogni
statua devono sceglierne tre che servono per scrivere una breve descrizione della statua.
Alla fine di ogni attività si corregge collettivamente.
Tempo previsto: 1 o 2 ore, dipende dal livello d’inglese e da quanti studenti è formata la classe.
É consentito l’uso del dizionario.
TITOLO:
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TITOLO:
The statue of Laocoön and His Sons (Italian: Gruppo del Laocoonte), also called the Laocoön Group, is
a monumental sculpture in marble now in the Vatican Museums, Rome. The statue is attributed by the
Roman author Pliny the Elder to three sculptors from the island of Rhodes: Agesander, Athenodoros and
Polydorus.
The story of Laocoön had been the subject of a now lost play by Sophocles, and was mentioned by other
Greek writers. Laocoön was killed after attempting to expose the ruse of the Trojan Horse by striking it with a
spear. The snakes were sent by Athena, and were interpreted by the Trojans as proof that the horse was a
sacred object. The most famous account of these events is in Virgil's Aeneid, but this very probably dates
from after the sculpture was made.
The Aphrodite of Milos/Melos, also known as the Venus de Milo, is sculptured by the Ancient Greeks, and
the work is one of the most famous of Ancient Greek Statues. Venus de Milo is sculpted between 130 and 100
BC, or the time period better known as the Hellenistic Period; the statue depicts Aphrodite-or Venus in
Roman times, the Greek Goddess of beauty and love. The Venus de Milo was discovered by a peasant farmer
named Yorgos Kentrotas (aided by a French naval officer by the name of Olivier Voutier,) in 1820, inside a
buried niche within the ancient city ruins of Milos on the Aegean Islands. The statue was found in two main
pieces consisting of the upper torso and the lower draped legs along with several herms, fragments of the
upper left arm and left hand holding an apple and an inscribed plinth were also excavated nearby the site.
The French ambassador recognized the significance of the sculpture, and ordered its purchase and
transportation to Paris. Upon its arrival in the Louvre, the sculpture was restored and reassembled, but the
fragments of the arms were lost during the statue’s drag across the beach and ocean.
The Dying Gaul (in Italian: Galata Morente ), formerly known as the Dying Gladiator , is an ancient
Roman marble copy of a lost Hellenistic sculpture that is thought to have been executed in bronze , which
was commissioned some time between 230 BC and 220 BC by Attalus I of Pergamon to celebrate his victory
over the Celtic Galatians in Anatolia . The statue depicts a dying Celt with remarkable realism, particularly in
the face, and may have been painted. He is represented as a Gallic warrior with a typically Gallic hairstyle
and moustache. The figure is naked save for a neck torc . He lies on his fallen shield while his sword and
other objects lie beside him.
The complex motion of this bronze statuette of a Veiled and Masked Dancer is conveyed exclusively
through the interaction of the body with several layers of dress. Over an undergarment that falls in deep folds
and trails heavily, the figure wears a lightweight mantle, drawn tautly over her head and body by the pressure
applied to it by her right arm, left hand, and right leg. Its substance is conveyed by the alternation of the
tubular folds pushing through from below and the freely curling softness of the fringe. The woman's face is
covered by the sheerest of veils, discernible at its edge below her hairline and at the cut outs for the eyes. Her
extended right foot shows a laced slipper. This dancer has been convincingly identified as one of the
professional entertainers, a combination of mime and dancer, for which the cosmopolitan city of Alexandria
was famous in antiquity.
Nike of Samothrace is a rare example of the mastery over the rigid materials and deep understanding of
the world as expressed through aesthetic conventions and techniques. The winged goddess appears to be in a
process of suspended animation as her outstretched wings labor gracefully to prevent the force of gravity
from anchoring the heavy stone to the ground. The twists and deep undercuts of the drapery conform
faithfully to the nude body underneath , and in the process, they reveal the physical human presence they
contain as is struggles to resist an invisible external force. This imaginary wind that shapes the drapery
becomes a physical presence and an intricate part of the sculpture itself in a playful interdependence of
physical and imagined entities. In this process it is the wind that gives form to the figure and breathes life
into the human presence of Nike.
Boy with Thorn, also called Fedele (Fedelino) or Spinario, is a Greco-Roman Hellenistic bronze
sculpture of a boy withdrawing a thorn from the sole of his foot, now in the Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome.
A Roman marble of this subject from the Medici collections is in a corridor of the Uffizi Gallery, Florence.
The formerly popular title Il Fedele ("The faithful boy") derived from an anecdote invented to give this
intimate and naturalistic study a more heroic civic setting: the faithful messenger, a mere shepherd boy, had
delivered his message to the Roman Senate first, only then stopping to remove a painful thorn from his foot:
the Roman Senate commemorated the event.
1. Answer the following questions concerning what you read before about the sculptures:
1) Who was the Roman author who attributed the Laocoon to Agesander, Athenodoros and
Polydorus?
2) How did the Trojans interpret the meaning connected with the snakes sent by Athena to kill
Laocoon?
3) What is Aphrodite the goddess of?
4) Which parts of the body of Aphrodite of Milos did they lose before the statue arrived in
Paris?
5) Who commissioned the statue of the Dying Gaul and in which city was it placed?
6) What are the three items that identify the character like a Gaul?
7) What is the Veiled and Masked Dancer covered with that makes her so intriguing?
8) Who could she be and where could she work?
9) What shapes the drapery of the Nike of Samotracia?
10) What prevents the force of gravity in the Nike?
11) What material is the Boy with Thorn originally made from?
12) What had the boy delivered before he carried out this action?
2. Choose three adjectives for every statue (you can choose every word more times) and then write
a short description of each statue using the three adjectives:
ELEGANT - RAISED - EVOCATIVE – ENGAGING - ABSORBING - CURIOUS - TRAGIC –
PATHETIC – MOVING - ATHLETIC – SENSUAL- SUFFERING – REALISTIC – POWERFUL
– MYSTERIOUS – DESCRIPTIVE