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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
Lascaux Cave Painting | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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Lascaux Cave Painting | Artopia
Anonymous A Closer Look The Caves of Lascaux, France are filled with prehistoric paintings including this horse. It is one of the oldest paintings in the world, created during the Paleolithic...
Jerome Robbins | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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Jerome Robbins | Artopia
Illustration by Maria Manhattan Jerome Robbins was born in New York City on October 11, 1918 and raised in Weehawken, New Jersey. As a child he showed talent, studying piano, violin and dance. Leaving...
Ping Chong | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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Ping Chong | Artopia
Illustration by Maria Manhattan Ping Chong was born in 1946 to a Chinese opera family in Toronto, Canada and spent his youth in New York’s Chinatown neighborhood, which influenced the themes explored...
Savion Glover | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 3
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Savion Glover | Artopia
Illustration by Maria Manhattan Savion Glover was born on November 19, 1973 and was raised by his mother and grandmother in Newark, New Jersey. As a very young child he displayed his unique rhythmic...
Katherine Dunham | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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Katherine Dunham | Artopia
Illustration by Maria Manhattan Katherine Dunham was born on June 22, 1909 in Chicago and raised in Joliet, Illinois. As a young person she began dance training in a kind of free form modern dance and...
Isadora Duncan | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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Isadora Duncan | Artopia
Illustration by Maria Manhattan Isadora Duncan was born on May 26, 1877 in San Francisco, California to artistic parents; her father was a poet and her mother a music teacher. Isadora loved poetry...
Bill T. Jones | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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Bill T. Jones | Artopia
Illustration by Maria Manhattan ​Bill T. Jones was born on February 15 1952 in Bunnell, Florida and was raised mostly in rural Stuben County in Upstate New York, as the tenth of twelve children to a...
Assemblage - Cubi XII | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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Assemblage - Cubi XII | Artopia
David Smith A Closer Look Cubi XII has straight lines and angles, making it an excellent example of geometric three-dimensional form. It balances without falling over even though the form is not the...
Assemblage - Untitled #857 | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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Assemblage - Untitled #857 | Artopia
Petah Coyne A Closer Look Untitled #857 is heavily textured. The ribbons covered with wax and little white birds make the work look like a lighted chandelier hanging from the ceiling. How does this...
Assemblage - Untitled (3-85) | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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Assemblage - Untitled (3-85) | Artopia
Deborah Butterfield A Closer Look If you look at Untitled (3-85) from a distance you might think it's a real horse. When an artist is able to use the principle of design balance, as Deborah...
Assemblage - Coke Bottle | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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Assemblage - Coke Bottle | Artopia
Howard Finster A Closer Look Howard Finster liked to decorate objects with paintings of things that were familiar to him. This piece is a prefabricated bottle that he has painted. It has a cylindrical...
Assemblage - Bird | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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Assemblage - Bird | Artopia
Alexander Calder A Closer Look Artists often use humor. Bird by Alexander Calder is one example. Calder made a lot of humorous artworks including a film of his miniature circus, the Cirque Calder, in...
Mikhail Baryshnikov | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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Mikhail Baryshnikov | Artopia
Illustration by Maria Manhattan Mikhail Baryshnikov was born on January 27, 1948 in Riga, Latvia where he began studying ballet. As a teenager, the great teacher Alexander Pushkin recognized “Misha’s”...
Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers | Artopia
Illustration by Maria Manhattan Fred Astaire was born Fredrick Austerlitz on May 10, 1899 in Omaha, Nebraska and Ginger Rogers was born Virginia Katherine McMath on July 16, 1911 in Independence...
Photography - Women's Rugby Game | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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Photography - Women's Rugby Game | Artopia
BILL FRAKES A Closer Look Apparently the fact that the players in this rugby game were wearing dresses didn't diminish the intensity of the rivalry between the teams. Photographer Bill Frakes has...
Photography - Tetons and the Snake River | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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Photography - Tetons and the Snake River | Artopia
ANSEL ADAMS A Closer Look Tetons and the Snake River is one of Ansel Adams' great western landscape photographs. The image seems to go on to infinity, absolutely sharp and clear. It is interesting to...
Photography - Rosa | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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Photography - Rosa | Artopia
CHESTER HIGGINS, JR. A Closer Look Rosa is a picture within a picture. At first we see a person in costume, make-up and sunglasses. But there is another picture. Reflected in the lens of the glasses...
Photography - Parisian Boulevard | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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Photography - Parisian Boulevard | Artopia
LOUIS DAGUERRE A Closer Look This Daguerreotype of a Parisian Boulevard is an early experiment by Louis Daguerre. His pictures required a very long exposure time. That's why the street seems empty -...
Alison Saar | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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  • 8
Alison Saar | Artopia
Illustration by Maria Manhattan Alison Saar was born in 1956 in Los Angeles, California. Her mother, the well-known artist Betye Saar, has European, Native American, and African American ancestors...
Photography - Icy Night | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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Photography - Icy Night | Artopia
ALFRED STIEGLITZ A Closer Look Icy Night has many of the qualities of the sort of photograph Alfred Stieglitz and his fellow “Pictorialists” liked to take. They believed the photographer could shape...
Photography: Harvest of Death | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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Photography: Harvest of Death | Artopia
TIMOTHY O'SULLIVAN A Closer Look Who are the men in this photograph? In Gardner's Photographic Sketch Book of the War, Alexander Gardner describes them as Confederate soldiers. However, there is...
Photography - Couple in Raccoon Coats | Artopia

Photo

Grades

  • 6
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Photography - Couple in Raccoon Coats | Artopia
JAMES VAN DER ZEE A Closer Look James Van Der Zee once said, "I tried to pose each person in such a way as to tell a story." In the studio he used elaborate backdrops and scenery but in this...