Key Stage

KS2 (ENG), KS2 (NI), CfE L2 (SCO), PS3 (WAL)
Art term

Baroque, Still life, Dutch Golden Age, Vanitas, Visual literacy
Created by

The Superpower of Looking
Topics

Plants and flowers

National Curriculum for England

Art and design
- Evaluate and analyse creative works using the language of art, craft and design
- Know about great artists, craft makers and designers, and understand the historical and cultural development of their art forms
- Produce creative work, exploring their ideas and recording their experiences
- Become proficient in drawing, painting, sculpture and other art, craft and design techniques

Northern Ireland Curriculum

Art and design
- Look at and talk about the work of artists, designers and craftsworkers from their own and other cultures; appreciate methods used in the resource materials and use their appreciation to stimulate personal ideas and engage with informed art making
- Develop their understanding of the visual elements of colour, tone, line, shape, form, space, texture and pattern to communicate their ideas
- Evaluate their own and others’ work and how it was made, explain and share their ideas, discuss difficulties and review and modify work to find solutions

Scotland's Curriculum for Excellence

Art and design
- I can create and present work that shows developing skill in using the visual elements and concepts (EXA 2-03a)
- Through observing and recording from my experiences across the curriculum, I can create images and objects which show my awareness and recognition of detail (EXA 2-04a)
- Inspired by a range of stimuli, I can express and communicate my ideas, thoughts and feelings through activities within art and design (EXA 2-05a)
- I can respond to the work of artists and designers by discussing my thoughts and feelings. I can give and accept constructive comment on my own and others' work (EXA 2-07a)

National Curriculum for Wales (2008)

Art and design
- Describe and make comparisons between their own work and that of others
- Experiment with and examine the methods used by other artists from different periods, places and cultures
- Evaluate the methods and results of their own work and that of their fellow pupils
- Pupils should be stimulated and inspired by: other artists; methods and processes; media; styles; ideas
- Explore, experiment with and apply the elements of the visual, tactile and sensory language of art, craft and design which include: line, tone, colour, pattern, texture, shape and form

New Curriculum for Wales (2022)

Expressive Arts

Exploring the expressive arts is essential to developing artistic skills and knowledge and it enables learners to become curious and creative individuals.

Progression step 3:

- I can explore the effects that a range of creative techniques, materials, processes, resources, tools and technologies have on my own and others' creative work.

- I can explore how creative work can represent, document, share and celebrate personal, social and cultural identities.

- I can explore and describe how artists and creative work communicate mood, feelings and ideas and the impact they have on an audience.

Responding and reflecting, both as artist and audience, is a fundamental part of learning in the expressive arts.

Progression step 3:

- I can give and consider constructive feedback about my own creative work and that of others, reflecting on it and making improvements where necessary.

- I can apply knowledge and understanding of context, and make connections between my own creative work and creative work by other people and from other places and times.

- I can reflect upon how artists have achieved effects or communicated moods, emotions and ideas in their work.

Image credit: Glasgow Life Museums

Still Life, Flowers and Insects c.1720–1730

Rachel Ruysch (1664–1750) (attributed to)

Glasgow Life Museums

About this resource

This is one of the lesson resources in The Superpower of Looking on still life. It focuses on Still Life, Flowers and Insects, a painting from 1720–1730 attributed to Rachel Ruysch.

These lesson resources are also in the still life theme:

How to use this resource

To teach this lesson, download the teachers' notes on a separate device, screen or print them off. Have this webpage open on your screen or whiteboard and use the prompts in the teachers' notes to guide your students through the lesson.

Art theme: still life

Historically, 'still life' was a category of painting typically featuring objects such as fruit, flowers, insects and/or countless collectables. Some objects were invested with symbolic value, e.g. the flower can be a metaphor of life and death – beautiful in bloom, but quick to fade. Paintings were traditionally small in scale to hang in people's homes rather than in public spaces.

In recent times, still life appears in art in various forms from the abstracted (simplified but still recognisable) to the entirely abstract (not recognisable as anything in reality, but perhaps reduced to its essential shape or basic form). Still life can even be represented in the form of the 'found object' (an actual vase or table, etc.) and assembled and documented to become 'art'.

Contextual background for teachers

Still Life, Flowers and Insects (c. 1720–1730)
attributed to Rachel Ruysch (1664–1750)

Medium: oil on canvas
Dimensions: H 61.2 x W 54.1 cm

As well as being a mother to ten children, Rachel Ruysch was a very successful still life painter from the Netherlands. Ruysch's father was, among other things, a botanist, and his daughter helped him catalogue botanical samples. It is no wonder she developed an acute eye for minute detail.

Unlike the rest of Europe, the Dutch elevated still life painting and such was the value of a tulip in the region that 'tulipmania' became a phenomenon. The tulip, originally from Turkey, became particularly symbolic of luxury and status. The variegated feature of the tulip that steals the show in this composition was actually caused by a virus, increasing its rarity and value even more.

Flower arrangements like this could be enjoyed at face value or understood in terms of marvelling at God's creation – their beauty being only short-lived.

Look, describe and discuss

Open a full-screen version of the zoomable image in a new window.

Ask your students to describe the artwork, encouraging them to simply say what they can see.

You can start by showing the whole image, and then use the zoom feature to explore details of the painting. Or you might like to start by using the zoom feature to show a detail from the image, and then zoom out to see more.

Encourage your students to look carefully – this is their superpower! It's best to not give too much background information about the artwork at this stage, so students can develop their own ideas and opinions.

An audio description of the painting is available to listen to. It is accompanied by a full written transcript which can also be used to describe the painting.

Nudge questions

Now when looking at the painting, ask more specific ('nudge') questions:

What do you notice about these flowers? Have they been painted to look realistic or not?
Are all the flowers perfect?
Can you spot anything other than flowers?
What might you be able to smell and hear if you were transported into the painting?

Questions from The Superpower of Looking Kit

Now we can start to explore the 'elements' of the painting.

For this artwork, you will focus on:

Ask your students to evidence their points:

where exactly are they looking when they make a statement?
can everybody see what they see?
slow down, take time to really look closely

You can introduce knowledge from the contextual background for teachers while asking these bespoke questions with helpful responses which can be found in the teachers' notes.

Image credit: Glasgow Life Museums

Still Life, Flowers and Insects c.1720–1730

Rachel Ruysch (1664–1750) (attributed to)

Glasgow Life Museums

Composition

Which is the proudest flower?
Is the composition symmetrical or asymmetrical?
Is the composition static or dynamic?
Do any particular colours advance compositionally (do they stand out from the rest)?
How does the artist bring you very close to the bouquet?

Colour

What kinds of colour is used? Is the colour descriptive (does it describe what it represents)?
Use the colour wheel in the Superpower of Looking Kit: are there any complementary colours used?
Why do you think Ruysch chose to set the display against such a dark background?

Light

What makes the flowers appear so real?
If you squint you will see that the white bloom is the most illuminated by light but where else is the white picked up?

Everyone learning

You can find out more about The Superpower of Looking SEND/ASD/ALN approach on the Superpower homepage.

Now it's time to explore the artwork in different ways. This list of sensory activities encourages students to apply their learning and can suit a variety of learning needs.

Make

Head outside to be inspired by nature. Encourage students to sketch the plants and flowers they discover in their sketchbooks.
Try flower pressing to create students' own floral compositions. You might like to use these flower pressing ideas from the Natural History Museum.

Listen

Listen to Edvard Grieg's Butterfly or Der Schmetterling (1886). Does the music remind students of the flight of a butterfly?

In eighteenth-century Europe, women were often overlooked as composers, just as in the world of painting. But there were women composers in Rachel Ruysch's time. Listen to Sonata No. 1 in D Minor (1707) by Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre. Can the students tell if it's written by a woman?

Listen to the audio description of the painting.

Art UK Learn · Still Life, Flowers and Insects by Rachel Ruysch, Glasgow Museums

Touch

Touch flowers, petals, leaves and models of butterflies and other insects.
Experiment with a torch to illuminate flowers in a vase in different ways.

Move

Mime the movement of a beautiful flower growing.
Move like a butterfly flying around and admiring the flowers or an insect crawling amongst them.

Communicate

Listen to The Story of Vanessa the Lost Butterfly, based on another Dutch flower painting. What story would your students tell about the insects in the painting Still Life, Flowers and Insects?

Learn the Makaton sign or British Sign Language for 'flower'.

Final stage: review

Ask your students to:

share their sketchbooks in groups and discuss the 'elements' they have identified
choose an element/aspect they find most interesting about the artwork and record it in their sketchbooks
choose their own name/s for the title of the artwork
think of a question they would like to ask the artist

Congratulations!

You have now completed this lesson resource on The Superpower of Looking.

There are more resources in this theme to try – have a look at the 'next lessons' section below.

Matisse and a pink tablecloth

An old woman cooking eggs

Yayoi Kusama's spotty pumpkin

Glasgow Museums: 'Still Life, Flowers and Insects'

Video: Rachel Ruysch: Painter of the court and mother of 10

Video: Painting flowers like an Old Master

Video: Flowers bring art to life at The National Gallery, London

Flower power: Rachel Ruysch and Dutch Golden Age bouquets 13 December 2023, Alice Vincent
The eight women artists of The National Gallery 11 February 2019, Jade King
Say it with roses: floral symbolism from Aphrodite to Nick Knight 9 April 2020, Maya Binkin
Blooming marvellous: a look at flowers in art 20 March 2019, Anita Sethi
Jan Brueghel the elder's 'A Stoneware Vase of Flowers' 16 August 2021, Henrietta Ward
All creatures great and small: inspecting insects in art 20 May 2019, Anita Sethi