Lessons on the original

With the start of the new school year, the Clemens Sels Museum Neuss has launched a new format for art lessons at elementary and secondary schools under the title "Unterricht am Original" ("Teaching with the Original"). The aim of the program is to reintroduce the young generation, which is growing up aware of the limitless reproducibility of images, to the uniqueness of the original. To this end, the students visit the museum, view an object on site, and learn many background facts about the work and its creation in an age-appropriate manner. In this way, the children come into personal contact with art and learn to describe their impressions of the painting and, above all, to express them creatively.

The exhibition "Lessons on the Original - Autumnal Still Life and Self-Portraits" now presented the results of the pilot project with the Martin Luther Elementary School in Neuss. The starting point was the paintings "Basket with Fruit" by Emma Stern, which ties in with the teaching theme of "Autumn" in the first grade, and "The Marquise" by James Ensor, which picks up on the theme of "self-portrayal" in the classroom, which is intended for the fourth grade.

The museum director, Dr. Uta Husmeier-Schirlitz, introduced the children to the objects in a variety of fun ways. Teachers Bettina Schneidewin and Kathrin Dannenbaum then worked creatively on these objects at school with classes 1b and 4a. The result was not only works in various techniques on paper, but also two listening stations.