The Significance of Art in French History: Students Visit The Met

In preparation for their field trip to the The Metropolitan Museum of Art, students learned about a few specific French paintings and were able to talk about them in both English and French.

When we reached the 19th and early 20th Century European wing at The Met, we searched for Claude Monet's "Garden at Sainte-Adresse" painting. Along the way, students stopped to point out some of the other paintings they recognized from our discussions. 

Going to museums might not be at the top of the list for a middle schooler, but my teacher's heart melted when I observed how genuinely excited students were to see the paintings in real life. They noticed details in person that they hadn't seen when we observed the paintings on the Smartboard. They were somber when we located Monet's "The Parc Monceau" painting because it had been stolen by the Nazis during WWII (one of over 600,000). 

To further emphasize the significance of art in French history, we are watching "The Monuments Men" dubbed in French which is about the men and women who risked their lives to retrieve stolen art during and after WWII.