Proctor's European Art Classroom program enters its final two weeks of the trimester. After six weeks living and learning together in Aix en Provence, France, the group has not only immersed themselves in the French culture, but traveled throughout Europe. Read reflections from Beatrice '24 and Violet '24 in this week's blog!
Beatrice '24: Boat, Train, Bus, Van, and Tram
When the sun still hadn't risen and all of Aix was quiet, we found ourselves headed to the Marseille train station for our second-to-last excursion. Instead of soaring through the sky to this new destination waiting to be explored, we took advantage of Europe's web of public transportation that lay at our fingertips. After our five-hour train ride past graffitied walls and never-ending outstretched countryside, we lugged our bags out of the train and onto the next, this time within Belgium. Outside the train window, a blur of green lush grass flashed by, a stark difference from the dryness in the South of France we were so accustomed to. Eager for more, and in need of a way to get to our final destination, our hotel, we hopped onto one of the numerous trams throughout Ghent, Belgium. Inside our final mode of transportation, the sweltering tram, we jolted at each stop. Unaccustomed to the movements our equilibriums were tested. Like being on a barge at sea, we gradually had to develop our sea legs throughout the week. After minding the gap and stepping out into the streets of Ghent, the clean, crisp Belgian air welcomed us with open arms; we all inhaled deeply. The luxury of scanning a ticket, greeting the driver, and then effortlessly arriving at our destination without the weight of worrying about directions or parking in a foreign country became apparent to us very quickly after our first travel-saturated day. To many of us, finding ourselves entangled in this web was new and different from Proctor's quiet Andover town and the northeast's main mode of travel: cars.
Each day we found ourselves utilizing this characteristic of Belgium, traveling in total on 10 train rides, 8 buses, and countless trams. In the train stations, the blaring whistle of the oncoming train coming into the station was our daily call to adventure. Using this attribute we were able to visit four major cities within Belgium and then return to our home base of Ghent all within the week. We took 30-minute train rides to Brugge, Antwerpen, and fished our last day off in Brussels. Each of these places had something unique to offer. In Ghent, we saw the Ghent Altarpiece which resides in Saint Bavo's Cathedral. In Antwerpen, we spent time sketching the Train Station in our Carnet de Voyage as it is regarded as one of the most beautiful train stations in the world. When we arrived in Brugge, "The Venice of the North" due to its canals, we just had to utilize them as our fourth way of transportation! The captain of the little canal boat, like most in Belgium, could speak countless languages. Throughout the tour, he would tell us about Brugge in every language so everyone on the boat could understand the city's vast allure. From our seats, we could see and smell the Belgian waffle and fry stands along the cobblestone roads that wafted into our nostrils. People standing on bridges above us overlooking the canals would wave and shout as we glided by. We finished our time in Brugge by feasting our eyes upon Michelangelo's "Madonna and Child".
The beauty of public transportation is that it allows a connection that driving in our group's van restricts. Instead of just connecting us from one destination to another, the way we traveled this past week in Belgium allowed us to connect with those around us. In the Saint Peter's train station, we helped another foreigner find a connecting train, we met fellow art enthusiasts on the bus headed to the same art museums, got directions from kind strangers when lost, petted strangers' dogs, and we even practiced our Dutch on the tram. Looking out the window of the bus we took routes we normally wouldn't take and enjoyed the longer ride. From our seats, we saw the Art Nouveau-style buildings along the streets and communities different from our own. With Belgium being the size of Maryland we were able to hop from city to city in a way we can't do in the US. Not only was public transportation just more convenient but it also brought another aspect to our time in Belgium; we could feel the heartbeat of the country.
Violet '24 | The Book Project
This week, our group passed the halfway point in our educational experience in Europe. Although our routine has stayed relatively the same, we have had to pivot our plans quite a few times due to weather. Overall, the group doesn't mind the spontaneity, but it has created an appreciation for the stabilities in our life here in Aix en Provence. Every weeknight at 8:00 pm, we sit down to work on our ongoing book project: the creation of an art history book encapsulating 17 different art movements from the Gothic period to more modern arts such as Dada and Surrealism. These books are each unique to the student making them as each of us chooses how to illustrate each page and write a personalized overview of the movement and a culmination of what Dave has taught us about art history in his class as well as what we have learned on the road.
Over the course of the past four weeks each individual student has spent, on average, around 60 hours on their book project. Although the book does get graded as our final in Art History, Literature, and Studio Art, the concept of creating your own book is so fulfilling, leaving us students to care more about the creative process than the act of it getting graded at the end of our time here. Up to this point, we have been focusing on the composition and the writing of each page of our books, but soon we will be embarking on the process of binding the book, a whole new experience that few to none of us have done before. The culmination of our hard work will be when we have an Art History book that we have made entirely ourselves, what an exciting project!
Each of our personalities are expressed in the way our books are constructed, with overarching themes that range from associating each art movement with a type of flower to choosing an architectural design from each time period. This project allows for individuality to be shown through the creation and craftsmanship of the book as a whole while incorporating an educational element that encapsulates what we have been learning. Deep-diving into each art period has given each one of us a greater understanding of the events that inspired the forms of art, but also the creative individuality and spark that inspired the artists to do something different that hadn't been done before, thus instigating the evolution of art. We have all had personal evolutions as artists over the first half of this Art intensive, trying new things, learning new things and accepting failure sometimes.
Check out more photos from European Art Classroom on Flickr!
- European Art Classroom
- Off-Campus Program