Investigating Japan’s Edo Avant Garde
Digital Editor for a free-to-use curriculum developed by the Smithsonian based off of Linda Hoaglund's film, Edo Avant Garde. After the Edo period, countless works were sold to Western collectors, who were captivated by the works’ elegant originality, and many are now housed in US museums. The National Museum of Asian Art (NMAA) has one of the world’s most important collections of Edo art, and this website explores treasures depicting the natural world from NMAA’s as well as other institutions’ collections. This image-driven, digital resource is designed for students to discover Edo-period art and to learn about the basic principles of art and design from a fresh perspective. Lesson plans leveled for elementary, middle, and high school students explore outstanding works of Edo art through video clips from the film, virtual image galleries, relevant articles, interview excerpts, and other educational resources. This website approaches the Edo period’s artistic legacy through five major themes: Painting Nature, Our Environment, Depicting Birds and Animals, Artistic Techniques, and Edo Avant-Garde. Each theme has two subthemes along with lesson plans filled with investigations and discoveries. Each subtheme begins with a high-resolution image of a major Edo artwork, with the question What do you see? This initial exercise is intended to motivate students to discover the art with their own eyes and to respond in their own language, whether that be verbal or artistic, to express what they see. Each subtheme examines a featured artwork and includes a brief introduction. The level-graded lesson plans provide a PDF for educators with learning objectives and assignments, additional artworks for reference, links to video clips, brief readings, assignment worksheets, and additional references. The Google Slides pages provide students with links to the resources and student-friendly instructions to follow in the classroom or remotely. The user-friendly navigation also includes indexes of art, artists, videos, and resources relevant across both the site and lesson plans as well as an introduction to and preview of Linda Hoaglund’s film Edo Avant Garde.
- Video Editor - Documentary