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French Art

Grades 6 through 12

We will offer a selection of in-person and virtual field trips (using Zoom) for fall 2024.

Requests for winter/spring field trips (January 6 – May 30, 2025) will be accepted from December 1, 2024 – April 5, 2025.

This field trip gives students a taste of 18th and 19th century French art and explores a variety of themes including artistic styles, portraits and landscape paintings, scenes from everyday life, and images of patronage and power.

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A man with pale peach skin and dark hair wears a military uniform and stands in front of a desk in this vertical portrait painting. He nearly fills the composition so seems close to us, and he looks directly at us. His body is angled slightly to our left and he tucks his right hand, on our left, flat against his chest between the buttons of his jacket. His navy-blue waistcoat is white along the front where it is fastened with brass buttons along his chest. The jacket has red cuffs, gold epaulets on the shoulders, and three medals affixed to the chest. White britches end just below the knee, and white stockings covering his calves are wrinkled at the ankle above black shoes with brass buckles. A candle burns low in a lamp on an ornately carved and gilded desk behind the man. Books and papers are piled on the desk to our right. More papers and a thin sword rest on a chair in front of the desk to our right. The chair is also carved and gilded, and is upholstered with scarlet-red fabric decorated with gold bees. The legs of the chair push back the forest-green carpet underfoot. A tall clock stands on the wall opposite us and reads 4:13. A few capital letters are written on a scroll of paper on the chair, “COD.” The artist’s name is also written as if printed on a scroll of paper on the floor behind the desk to our left: “LVD.CI.DAVID OPVS 1812.”

Jacques-Louis David, The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries, 1812, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1961.9.15

Looking and Learning Skills

During four to five field trip stops in the galleries, students engage in activities—such as looking exercises and small group work—that foster conversations about works of art. On this field trip, students will practice the following skills:

  • Reasoning with evidence from works of art and using them as primary sources from which to gather ideas about French art and culture
  • Developing new perspectives about French art, culture, and history
  • Making and voicing careful observations
  • Formulating questions that demonstrate curiosity and engagement
  • Comparing different works of art and articulating connections between them
  • Connecting field trip ideas to prior knowledge and experience

In-Person Field Trip Information

Group Size: Up to 90 students
Length: 75 minutes
Meeting Location: West Building Rotunda

Important Scheduling Information

Field trips must be scheduled at least four weeks in advance. Groups must contain at least 15 students.

Once your field trip has been scheduled, you will receive an email confirmation within ten business days.

Bus Transportation

Bus transportation is available for DCPS (District of Columbia Public Schools) participating in our docent-led school field trips. Teachers should follow the guidelines here to apply for bus transportation.

Examples of Works Featured on this Field Trip

A man with pale peach skin and dark hair wears a military uniform and stands in front of a desk in this vertical portrait painting. He nearly fills the composition so seems close to us, and he looks directly at us. His body is angled slightly to our left and he tucks his right hand, on our left, flat against his chest between the buttons of his jacket. His navy-blue waistcoat is white along the front where it is fastened with brass buttons along his chest. The jacket has red cuffs, gold epaulets on the shoulders, and three medals affixed to the chest. White britches end just below the knee, and white stockings covering his calves are wrinkled at the ankle above black shoes with brass buckles. A candle burns low in a lamp on an ornately carved and gilded desk behind the man. Books and papers are piled on the desk to our right. More papers and a thin sword rest on a chair in front of the desk to our right. The chair is also carved and gilded, and is upholstered with scarlet-red fabric decorated with gold bees. The legs of the chair push back the forest-green carpet underfoot. A tall clock stands on the wall opposite us and reads 4:13. A few capital letters are written on a scroll of paper on the chair, “COD.” The artist’s name is also written as if printed on a scroll of paper on the floor behind the desk to our left: “LVD.CI.DAVID OPVS 1812.”
Examples of Works Featured on Tour

Jacques-Louis David, The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries, 1812, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1961.9.15
A young man and child, both with pale skin, are framed within the rectangular opening of a stone window in this vertical painting. At the center, the young man leans toward us over his forearms, which rest on the wide ledge. Angled to our right, he holds a long straw to his mouth to blow a large, glistening bubble that hangs on the opposite end. A second straw rests in a glass cup filled with white liquid, presumably soapy water, that sits near his right elbow, on our left, and he looks down at the bubble. His chestnut-brown hair is tied back with a black ribbon, and curls hang down from his temple. He wears a brown jacket over a white shirt. A younger child peeks over the ledge to our right and also looks at the bubble. Seen from the nose up, the child wears a hat that curves up and over the crown of the head. The face of the brown stone building into which the window is cut seems close to us. A vine of ivy climbs up the face of the building to our left.
Examples of Works Featured on Tour

Jean Siméon Chardin, Soap Bubbles, probably 1733/1734, oil on canvas, Gift of Mrs. John W. Simpson, 1942.5.1
A pale turquoise footbridge arching over a pond lined with tall grasses and filled with petal-pink and butter-yellow waterlilies spans this horizontal landscape painting. The scene is loosely painted with touches of vibrant color. In the top third of the composition, the shallowly arched bridge nearly touches the top edge of the canvas, and it extends off each side. The shadows on the bridge are painted with eggplant purple. Bands of waterlilies gently zigzag into the distance on the surface of the water. The spring and emerald-green grasses growing along the banks fill the space around and over the pond, and they blend into a screen of trees beyond that enclose the scene. The green of the grasses and trees is reflected in the surface of the water, as is the underside of the bridge. The artist signed and dated the work with dark paint in the lower right corner: “Claude Monet 99.”
Examples of Works Featured on Tour

Claude Monet, The Japanese Footbridge, 1899, oil on canvas, Gift of Victoria Nebeker Coberly, in memory of her son John W. Mudd, and Walter H. and Leonore Annenberg, 1992.9.1
Against a hilly landscape and on a patch of dirt, five people wearing tattered clothing gather around a bearded man who holds a violin in his lap in this horizontal painting. Most of them have pale skin. Starting from the left is a barefoot young woman holding a blond baby to her chest. She faces our right, and her chestnut-brown hair hides her profile. She wears a black shirt over a calf-length skirt streaked with slate and aquamarine blue. To the right two young boys face us. The boy on the left of that pair wears a loose white shirt tucked into tan-colored pants and an upturned wide-brimmed hat. The boy next to him has short brown hair and is dressed in a black and brown vest and pants over a bone-white shirt. His right arm, to our left, is slung across the shoulders of the blond boy and he looks off to our right with dark, unfocused eyes. The man who holds the violin is to our right of center. He sits on a stone with his body facing our left, but he turns to look at us with dark eyes under heavy brows. He has tan skin, dark gray, curly hair, and a trimmed silvery gray beard. A wrinkle under one eye suggests he may smile slightly at us. He wears a loose brown cloak with a ragged bottom hem, teal-blue stockings, and black shoes. He holds a violin on his lap like a guitar. One hand fingers a chord on the neck of the violin, which comes toward us, and the other hand holds the bow and plucks a string. A sand-colored bag with a strap lies at his feet. Two men stand to our right of the musician. One wears a tall black top hat, a brown cloak, gray pants, and black shoes. His face is loosely and indistinctly painted but he has a beard. Finally, the sixth person is a man who stands along the right side of the painting and is cut off by that edge. He wears a turban, a black polka-dotted scarf, and a long black cloak or coat. One hand clutches the scarf and the other rests on a wooden cane by his side. His chin and long, light-colored beard tuck back against the scarf, and he looks off to our left with dark eyes. There are loosely painted olive and forest-green leaves in the upper left corner. The landscape beyond is painted with indistinct areas of muted green, blue, and brown. Bits of azure-blue sky peek through puffy white and gray clouds overhead. The artist signed and dated the lower right, “ed. Manet 1862.”
Examples of Works Featured on Tour

Edouard Manet, The Old Musician, 1862, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.162
We look down on a few dozen people walking along the sidewalks of a wide, sunlit bridge in this almost square painting. The scene is loosely painted, which gives it a hazy, sun-dappled look and makes some details indistinct. The people wear black, white, light blue, or pale green jackets and pants or long dresses as they walk in all directions. Some wear hats, and a few women carry parasols. The bridge opens into a wide boulevard close to us, as the sidewalks angle into the lower corners of the composition. Several horse-drawn carriages move across the bridge alongside the people. The deck of the oyster-white bridge is lined with black gas lamps. The river beneath shimmers with lapis and turquoise blue. The far side is packed with four and five-story buildings, which are mostly tan with rows of windows painted as blue rectangles. The rooflines bristle with chimneys. Another structure or boat sits on the water near the lower right corner of the painting, and a flag with vertical bands of red, white, and blue flies from a flagpole there. Opposite the flag, on the far bank, is a statue of a man on a horse, both on a tall plinth. The horizon comes about halfway up the composition, and the azure-blue sky above is dotted with puffy white clouds tinged with dove gray and mauve. The artist signed and dated the lower left, “A. Renoir. 72.”
Examples of Works Featured on Tour

Auguste Renoir, Pont Neuf, Paris, 1872, oil on canvas, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection, 1970.17.58
Shown from the chest up, a man with short, orange hair and green-tinted, pale skin looks at us, wearing a vivid blue painter's smock in this vertical portrait painting. His smock and the background are painted with long, mostly parallel strokes of cobalt, azure, and lapis blue. His shoulders are angled to our left, and he looks at us from the corners of his blue eyes. He has a long, slightly bumped nose, and his lips are closed within a full, rust-orange beard. He holds a palette and paintbrushes in his left hand, in the lower left corner of the canvas. The background is painted with long brushstrokes that follow the contours of his head and torso to create an aura-like effect.
Examples of Works Featured on Tour

Vincent van Gogh, Self-Portrait, 1889, oil on canvas, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. John Hay Whitney, 1998.74.5

Additional National Gallery Resources

Classroom Poster

The Railway

Manet’s The Railway gives us a glimpse of Parisian life in the 19th century. The poster offers information and activities to encourage looking at, thinking about, and interpreting the work of art. It can be used flexibly and is suitable for small-group or whole-class work.

Download Poster (PDF 522KB)

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