LESSON PLANS
Tone Lapajne, soil artist
SLOVENIA
Tone Lapajne, umetnik zemlje
Earth
B1
Warming Up
Do you have any memories related to earth;?
Did it feel soft or hard,
warm or damp or dry,
sandy like in deserts?
Did it smell earthy?
Other?
If you are an older learner, do you remember what Tara in “Gone With The Wind” symbolizes?
Love for the land?
Survival?
What makes people go through catastrophes…
War?
Other?
If you are a learner with visual impairments, what does the music “Tara’s Theme” tell you about the role of the land in “Gone With The Wind”? You can listen to it here:
Tone Lapajne, soil artist
Tone Lapajne was a versatile Slovenian artist. He started as a sculptor and ended up as a painter, but a very special sort of painter. He invented the “earth on canvas” technique. The wetlands around Ljubljana, with their many earth colours, were a great source of inspiration for him.
This Slovenian sculptor and painter was born in 1933. Not only did he paint earth, but he utilized earth and mud from wetlands to create his pictures. He searched there for different colours of earth. (There are at least 50 colours.) To the earth he added some black or some olive paint. Because of his use of earth in his pictures, he became “a sort of painter”. He used to say: “The earth nurtures me both materially and spiritually! I pick up some earth… this matter which is a part of universe, and lay it on canvas. Cracks in the earth are scary,” he said, “but the rest…”
At the memorial exhibition Memory of Earth, 2016 in Ljubljana, Tone Lapajne was described as an artist who created statues, installations, and paintings. He used concrete, iron, wood, and finally his wetland earth for his artworks. He was in constant touch with nature and deeply interested in natural materials but “material does not create a work of art, artist does”.
What did he say? His slogan came from the Bible. “We all come from dust (earth) and we all return to dust (earth).” “Expression is not only in material, the artist’s touch is important.”
Vocabulary
Cultural Heritage
Earth is one of the four elements. Elements unite the most significant images of our cultures. Fertile soil is something from which things are born. Earth feels soft or hard. Earth and the underground are associated with roots and rest. Mother Earth symbolizes maternity, but also danger.
In legends soil and the underground are associated with dwarfs.
In cinema earth is often associated with the topic of apocalypse. The planet Earth is represented as place of overpopulation, over-industrialization, overproduction, pollution, atomic destruction. “Melancholia” is one of the 400 films dealing with the topic of our planet and apocalypse. It is a lyrical ode to the end of the world… You can watch the trailer for it here.
Listening
Listen to a sentence from XXXX text and answer the following questions
Who was Tone Lapajne?
Was he a painter?
What kind of “painting” technique did he invent?
Listening Comprehension (optional)
Read the story
Tone Lapajne, artist of the soil
Tone Lapajne was a versatile Slovenian artist. He started as a sculptor and ended up as a painter, but a very special sort of painter. He invented the “earth on canvas” technique. The wetlands around Ljubljana, with their many earth colours, were a great source of inspiration for him.
This Slovenian sculptor and painter was born in 1933. Not only did he paint earth, but he utilized earth and mud from wetlands to create his pictures. He searched there for different colours of earth. (There are at least 50 colours.) To the earth he added some black or some olive paint. Because of his use of earth in his pictures, he became “a sort of painter”. He used to say: “The earth nurtures me both materially and spiritually! I pick up some earth… this matter which is a part of universe, and lay it on canvas. Cracks in the earth are scary,” he said, “but the rest…”
At the memorial exhibition Memory of Earth, 2016 in Ljubljana, Tone Lapajne was described as an artist who created statues, installations, and paintings. He used concrete, iron, wood, and finally his wetland earth for his artworks. He was in constant touch with nature and deeply interested in natural materials but “material does not create a work of art, artist does”.
What did he say? His slogan came from the Bible. “We all come from dust (earth) and we all return to dust (earth).” “Expression is not only in material, the artist’s touch is important.”
Deep reading
Stop at points that inspire you and put you on a thinking track.
Reread the text.
Take some notes.
Reading Comprehension
Grammar
Conditionals: the zero conditional
Remind yourself of the zero conditional at BBC Learning English:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/course/intermediate/unit-5/session-2
Grammar exercises related to the grammar used in the text:
We use conditional sentences to talk about situations and their consequences. These situations may be always true, possible, unlikely or impossible.
We use the zero conditional for facts and things that are always true and their consequences.
Examples:
If it rains, the earth becomes wet and muddy.
I drink a cup of tea when I get home from work every day.
When we are in European capital cities, we always find some time to go to museums.
The if or when clause uses the simple present simple tense.
The main clause also uses the simple present tense.
Additional activities
Would you like to become a soil artist?
Collect soil samples and study them and the colours they produce.
Watch this film for inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oLGdmyMcuQ
Extra resources for learners
Do some research into a topic based on the story
What is land art? Land art is made directly in the landscape. You have to visit the art on site. Sometimes land art uses natural materials and such artworks are exhibited in galleries.
Here is an example: Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty, 1970.
Robert Smithson
is a well-known artist in the field of land art. After an early career as a painter, influenced by Expressionist painters, he modified his practice in 1964. He began to use combinations of materials to form three-dimensional sculptural compositions. He collected earth and rocks and installed them in the gallery as sculptures.
Click on the link to see a painting by Willem Van Herp the Elder. What does it show? Can you describe all the details in it?