As an 8th grade math teacher from a small school district, I know that a truly well-rounded
education needs to include exposure to the arts. I also know that because of Common Core and
time/scheduling constraints, art instruction has been drastically reduced in most districts. It was
thus, with much enthusiasm, that I jumped at the opportunity to participate in the Rutgers GSE
and Dodge Foundation STEAM Consortium. Working with this group’s creative and enthusiastic
participants, I was inspired to come up with the following lesson integrating the art of Mondrian
with algebra. The result is a hands-on math lesson which students thoroughly enjoyed and
which helped in their mathematical understanding as well as their appreciation for art.
We began with an introduction about Mondrian, the times in which he lived, and how the advent
of the camera changed what art was becoming. This is a relevant discussion for students who
have access to a camera on their phones at any time. We looked at examples of Mondrian’s
early work so that students could see his obvious artistic ability, and how he began to look at the
abstract, gradually trying to achieve pure abstraction through his use of only vertical and
horizontal lines and primary colors. The idea of the abstract (existing in thought or idea but not
having a physical or concrete existence) further connects to math abstractions such as irrational
numbers, negative numbers, and non-real numbers. We looked at Mondrian’s use of
asymmetrical balance in his works, and students used this concept in the final phase of this
project as they critiqued one another’s original works. The following website and slide show was
used for this discussion:
http://www.theartstory.org/artist-mondrian-piet.htm
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1dfVSqqf3CYJN7_ErWzu24bqP7GhhfdIM6Jz5S3oGZQ/edit#slide=id.ged7329a1c_1_82
After our initial discussion, student-pairs were given a coordinate plane and an instruction sheet
as pictured below.
STEAMed Magazine
38
April 2016 Edition