Educator Resources

Art + Science was developed by the Art Institute of Chicago to support dialogue and collaboration between art and science teachers at the middle school level, with the ultimate goal of inspiring art and science integration in the curriculum.

This teaching packet includes an essay, discussion questions, activity ideas, a glossary, and images of three photographs from Dawoud Bey’s first significant body of work.

With its pulsating strands and slashes of bright color, this work evokes memories of bustling cities that Mitchell recalled from her travels in the American Midwest.

The works executed in the last decade or so of Philip Guston’s life depict a world populated by hooded figures, disembodied body parts, clocks, light bulbs, and various tools and materials found in a painter’s studio.

Thinly and rapidly painted, Equestrienne (At the Cirque Fernando) (1887-88) has the confident, improvisational quality of a drawing. Its subject is the Circus Fernando, one of the first permanent circuses in Paris.

This ceramic sculpture of a camel and rider is an example of a type of mingqi, or tomb figure. During the Tang Dynasty whenever a rich or powerful person died they were buried with clay objects depicting people, animals, and fantastic creatures

This sculpture of Ganesha, Hinduism’s Lord of Beginnings and Remover of Obstacles, posed mid-dance, is sure to amuse with his oversized elephant head and rotund belly.

This screen celebrates the Japanese tradition of viewing cherry blossoms to mark the arrival of spring. The tree’s blossoms and hanging poem slips create an elegant design against the gold of the silk.

In Many Mansions, Kerry James Marshall combined the real and the ideal to portray the residents’ efforts to preserve their community.

This painting depicts the dignified, Chicago-based artist Archibald J. Motley, Jr. The traditional composition and lively colors that hint of his future Bronzeville paintings offer a glimpse into the complexity of Motley himself.

Adriaen van Ostade’s Merrymakers in an Inn illustrates peasants of multi-generations celebrating a joyous event in a spacious and picturesque interior.

Inspired by the Apollo missions, Thomas’s thickly painted patches of vivid color against a white ground creates a sensation of flickering light, which suggests the mysterious beauty of outer space and inspires a sense of wonder.

This painting features the famous medieval legend of Saint George, who saved a princess about to be sacrificed to the dragon threatening her father’s kingdom.

In this image, the features are greatly distorted as Pablo Picasso began to examine the subject’s facial features and characteristics as closely and specifically as possible.

This figure of Shukongojin looks down from his rock-like pedestal, imposing both a sense of awe and curiosity about the target of his aggressive presence.