How should I prepare myself to speak to the children about Pete Revonkorpi’ s art? I guess the best way to do this is to get some sleep, a sleep full of dreams, because the artist’s world is populated by all sorts of characters who are either getting ready to sleep or sleeping already. In his art you will also find all kinds of artists (painters, poets, musicians), gardeners, fishermen or sailors.
After a good night’s sleep, in which I was a dreamer like many of Pesare’s characters, I went to see the kids to tell them about this 37-year-old Finnish artist who illustrates book for children and was kind enough to allow me to create a powerpoint presentation about his art.
I show the children the first slide, that with The Twins, inspired by da Vinci’s La belle ferronnière. A boy(V.) and a girl( D.) immediately recognize Leonardo’s painting from my previous lessons.
I ask the children to notice the resemblances and the differences between the twins. According to F. one is brighter than the other. The reason F. reached this conclusion is the fact that the former has a green tree in her head, while the latter has a leafless tree. Another child (V.) notices that one shows her finger to the other, as if the first one were guilty of something.
I show them that the lady on the left has a ring, while the lady on the right is pointing her index finger towards her twin’s ring. What does this mean? That one is married and the other is not and the not married one wishes to be married and is envious of the married one(according to S.). Another kid believes that one of the twins has six fingers. 🙂
The next slide about the Grown Ups shows us several characters with their head dug in the ground and their feet in the air, in a snowing, dull background. Their gloomy clothes suggest that the adults lost the imagination and creativity typical to children and aren’t able to enjoy the snow like children do. This image is so different from that called Snowflakes in which a little girl thinks that the snowflakes take the shape of ballerinas! One of the children from my class thinks that the grown ups in the second slide have died. In a way, he is right. Pesare’s adults seem more like living dead.
In the slide about the Knight, S. sees a kid in his garden, riding a puppy. S. gives another interpretation of the drawing as well, that the kid dreams because he has pyjamas and the Moon can be seen in the background. Two children start to argue about the dragon. One of them thinks there is no dragon at all in the picture, but a dinosaur, because if it had been a dragon it would have had wings. The other child thinks that the dragons’wings are behind the castle. V. even thinks that the captive princess shouts: “Heeelp! Save me from this dragon!”
In Fishing from a Paperboat, V. sees four children. According to him, three of them have fishing rods and fish a book, a tyre and a painter’s palette. We argue a little about the tyre, I believe it is a camera, but I am not sure. My interpretation of the picture is that we see the fishers of the arts in it, each child is fishing for the art that he/she will later practice. The Head teacher has his own interpretation of the image, that we can see some kids who are at the beginning of their lives and who choose the field they will latter approach. As for S., he shares with us his ecological approach, that people threw a lot of garbage in the water and that these four children try to fight against pollution.
Analysing the girl from Going to Sleep, a girl (D.) thinks she resembles Rapunzel and that she carries a suitcase full of toys. As for Morning, F. thinks that the girl awakens from the world of the dreams and that the flowers at her feet suggest she had a nice dream.
After analysing all these pictures I show the kids two of Pesare’ s works that inspired me to write two poems. One of them is Knitter, which was the starting point in writing the poem The Little Knit Slippers Are Ready! and the other one is Dreamwalker, which made me write the text Aspiration.
I give my special thanks to my friend Maria-Nicoleta who helped me correcting the mistakes of this text.
To be continued
clipe de reverie 