Take One Picture : Children inspired by Bartolome Bermejo.

Interesting exhibition at the National Gallery in this annual series which invites schools to respond to a picture in the gallery.

This year’s picture was “St Michael Triumphant over the Devil with Donor” by Bartolome Bermejo. It’s a picture I’m fond of byt it didn’t seem to work so well as other pictures have done with the children. I loved last year’s look at Seurat’s “The Bathers”.  I suspect the hope had been that children would respond to the monster in it but surprisingly few schools looked at that aspect.

An example of stretching the theme was one school which had looked at how St Michael was acting like a superhero in the picture so who were the children’s super heroes.  Another looked at the history of the silk route which I’d not really got from the picture at all.

I did like William Barnes Primary Schools take on the reflection of the city in the breast plate and had done repetitive rooftop shapes to make patterns based on the shape of the roof of their school. The same school had also done a project looking at what would have happened if the saint lived or died and re-enacted the different scenarios like a police interview with the devil.

 

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