Art and Content-Area Literacies

While visiting the Georgia Museum of Art, I found a great piece by Pierre Daura. Female Headwas created in 1929 using oil on canvas. This painting is not only beautiful to look at, but it can easily be used in a math content course. When teaching about fractions you should show this to students as an example of the area model. I think this provides a very clear demonstration of how fractions can be seen as parts of a whole. The painting is one whole, yet there are parts inside of various colors. Using the section in the middle you could have students estimate what fraction of the painting is green or navy. The bottom half is orange but three shades of orange. You could have them look at how ½ of the painting is orange, then within that 1/3 is light orange, 1/3 is medium and 1/3 dark orange. This could then be used to teach fraction multiplication. To find what fraction of the paining is dark orange you would do 1/3 of the ½ of the painting. Art is beautiful and easily applicable to literature and history, however some more modern pieces like this one can also easily be used in a math classroom. 207