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Artopia

Artopia is a comprehensive web-based arts experience designed for middle school students, covering the visual and performing arts.

Visual and Performing Arts for Grades 6-8

Artopia is a comprehensive web-based arts experience designed for middle school students, covering the visual and performing arts. Students will learn art history via animated one-minute movies, be guided on how to closely examine important works of art, and view videos of professional artists at work.This project was supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. 

Please note many of the web videos include transcripts.

More in this Series

Series Dance - Artopia
Dance - Artopia

Step inside Artopia's Dance lobby!

Series Media Arts
Media Arts

Step inside Artopia's Media Arts lobby!

Series Artopia Music
Artopia Music

Step inside Artopia's Music lobby!

Series Artopia's Painting Lobby
Artopia's Painting Lobby

Step inside Artopia's Painting lobby!

Series Sculpture
Sculpture
Series Theater - Artopia
Theater - Artopia
Resource Type
Kara Walker | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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Kara Walker | Artopia
Illustration by Maria Manhattan Kara Walker was born in 1969 in Stockton, California. She earned a B.F.A from Atlanta College of Art and an M.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design and she has...
Andy Warhol | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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Andy Warhol | Artopia
Illustration by Maria Manhattan Andy Warhol was born on August 6, 1928 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His given name was Andrew Warhola and his father, a construction worker, died in an accident when he...
Georgia O’Keeffe | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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Georgia O’Keeffe | Artopia
Illustration by Maria Manhattan Georgia O’Keeffe was born on a large dairy farm outside of Sun Prairie, Wisconsin on November 15, 1887. She spent her youth in Wisconsin and Virginia. By the eighth...
Alice Neel | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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Alice Neel | Artopia
Illustration by Maria Manhattan Alice Neel was born on January 28, 1900 in Merion Square, Pennsylvania and spent her childhood in the small town of Colwyn, PA. In 1921, she enrolled in the...
Frida Kahlo | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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Frida Kahlo | Artopia
Illustration by Maria Manhattan Frida Kahlo was born on July 6, 1907 in Coyoacán, a quiet town on the outskirts of Mexico City. Frida had a difficult, but triumphant life. Because of childhood polio...
Salvador Dali | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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  • 8
Salvador Dali | Artopia
Illustration by Maria Manhattan Salvador Dali was born in 1904 in Figures, Catalonia, Spain. He received his first drawing lessons at ten and he was educated at the School of Fine Arts in Madrid. He...
Marc Chagall | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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Marc Chagall | Artopia
Illustration by Maria Manhattan Marc Chagall was born on July 7, 1887 in Vitebsk, Belorussia, as one of eight children in a Jewish family. His given name was not Marc, but Moses. As a young man...
Mary Cassatt | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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Mary Cassatt | Artopia
Illustration by Maria Manhattan Mary Cassatt was born in Allegheny City (now part of Pittsburgh), Pennsylvania on May 22, 1844. She spent her childhood in Pennsylvania, and spent most of her life in...
Xu Bing | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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Xu Bing | Artopia
Illustration by Maria Manhattan Xu Bing was born in Chongqing, China in 1955 and grew up in Beijing. He grew up in China during the Cultural Revolution, when he and other children were sent off to...
Jean-Michel Basquiat | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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Jean-Michel Basquiat | Artopia
Illustration by Maria Manhattan Jean-Michel Basquiat was born in Park Slope, Brooklyn, New York on December 20, 1960. He began his art career as a teenage graffiti artist who wrote sayings on public...
Carving - Peplos Kore (Peplophoros) | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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Carving - Peplos Kore (Peplophoros) | Artopia
Anonymous A Closer Look Artworks made during a particular time and place often look similar to one another. We call them "stylized." Many artworks from the Archaic Period of ancient Greece resemble...
Carving - Slave Called Atlas | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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Carving - Slave Called Atlas | Artopia
Michelangelo A Closer Look Do you think this sculpture by Michelangelo is finished...or is the artist making a statement about slavery? What do you think he would be trying to say? There is a strong...
Carving - Moses (after Michelangelo) | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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Carving - Moses (after Michelangelo) | Artopia
Edmonia Lewis A Closer Look We often hear that copying is wrong, but a good way to study techniques of art is to imitate the works of other artists. 400 years after Michelangelo, Edmonia Lewis lived...
Carving - Kouros | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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Carving - Kouros | Artopia
Isamu Noguchi A Closer Look Do you think this sculpture could be considered stylized? Do you notice a resemblance between it and another in our collection? Noguchi simplified the parts of the body and...
Carving - Harlow Family Group | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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  • 8
Carving - Harlow Family Group | Artopia
Henry Moore A Closer Look Henry Moore’s work is organic, meaning that it flows and has a lot of curvy lines. Look at the outline of this sculpture. See how the spaces between and around the sculpture...
Scott Joplin | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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Scott Joplin | Artopia
Scott Joplin was born near Linden, Texas and raised in Texarkana, Texas, the son of a railroad laborer who had been a slave. Joplin showed an early and extraordinary aptitude for music, which was...
Hugh Masekela | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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Hugh Masekela | Artopia
Hugh Masekela was born in Witbank, South Africa on April 4, 1939. He began singing and playing piano as a child and as a teenager, was encouraged to play the trumpet by the British anti-apartheid...
Igor Stravinsky | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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Igor Stravinsky | Artopia
Igor Stravinsky was born on June 17, 1882 in Oranienbaum near St. Petersburg, Russia. He started piano lessons at the age of nine and began the serious study of composition. At the age of 20 as a law...
Mary Lou Williams | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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Mary Lou Williams | Artopia
Mary Lou Williams was born in Atlanta, Georgia on May 10, 1910 and grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A prodigy, she taught herself to play the piano at the age of four. Williams could hear a piece...
Woody Guthrie | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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Woody Guthrie | Artopia
Woody Guthrie was born Woodrow Wilson Guthrie on July 14, 1912 in Okemah, Oklahoma. A keen observer of the world around him, he began to travel across the country as a teenager and spent much of his...
Celia Cruz | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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  • 9
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Celia Cruz | Artopia
Celia Cruz was born and raised in the working class Santos Suarez neighborhood of Havana, Cuba on October 21, 1924. Brought up in a musical family, she began singing in local contests and later...
Maria Callas | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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Maria Callas | Artopia
Maria Callas was born Maria Anna Sophia Cecilia Kalogeropoulos on December 2, 1923 to Greek parents in New York, New York. At 14, Callas moved to Greece to study at the Athens Conservatory of Music. A...
Louis Armstrong | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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Louis Armstrong | Artopia
Louis Armstrong was born on August 4, 1901 and raised in the Storyville district of New Orleans, Louisiana. As a child he was a street singer and learned to play the coronet while in reform school...
Winter Horse Raiding Episode | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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Winter Horse Raiding Episode | Artopia
Moses Old Bull A Closer Look A shape is a two-dimensional representation of an object showing its width and length. The outline of a figure is called a skeletal shape. Geometric shapes use straight...