Master Collection activity 8: The Fortune Teller - drama, dialogue and cartoon bubbles
Children investigate The Fortune Teller (by an unidentified French flower of Carravagio).
They use it as a starting point for discussion, enquiry and creativity including role play.
Learning objectives
Increased knowledge and understanding of art and how it is made.
Develop skills and confidence in studying and interpreting artworks and expressing ideas and opinions about them.
Curriculum links
KS1-4 Art (investigating and comparing artworks, artists inspiration, Renaissance art, different art techniques and media)
KS1-2 History (Renaissance art).
KS1-2 English (drama, creative writing)
Discuss and investigate what’s happening in the picture at Learn with Objects Master Collection 8: The Fortune Teller. Think about the following questions:
- What’s the lady on the right doing?
- What’s the boy on the left up to?
- Why is the picture divided into squares?
Discover the answers on the Learn with Objects website. Then compare and contrast it with similar artworks in major art collections around the world.
What’s happening in the picture?
Use the De la Tour for re-enactment or dialogue as suggested above.
- Ask pupils in small groups to re-enact the scene.
- Ask pupils to write dialogue for the characters.
- Ask pupils to write cartoon bubbles with text for what the four figures are saying or thinking.
Creative comparisons:
Find an image of Caravaggio’s Fortune Teller in the Louvre
https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/the-fortune-teller/KQE8dCTsAlLmZQ
Or WikiCommons has several image options of different sizes
Ask pupils to compare Caravaggio’s painting with the Folkestone drawing:
- What is similar?
- What is different?
- Why do you think the artist of the drawing made these changes?
The Louvre painting is thought to be a slightly later variant of another Fortune Teller version by Caravaggio in the Capitoline Museum, Rome:
https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/good-luck/5AHkWwltiohLvQ
Or WikiCommons has several image options
Ask pupils to compare the two Caravaggio versions:
- What is similar?
- What is different?
- Why do you think Caravaggio made the changes?
Clothes and colour
Ask children to look at the clothes in Caravaggio’s and De la Tour's paintings and imagine the colours and patterns in the Folkestone drawing. Print out photocopies of the Folkestone sketch and ask children to annotate or colour the clothing in the sketch as they think it would have looked as a finished painting.
What’s happening in the picture?
Use the De la Tour painting as the basis for the following activities:
- In small groups ask pupils to re-enact the scene
- Ask pupils to write dialogue for the characters
- Ask pupils to write cartoon bubbles with text for what the four figures are saying or thinking.
Learn with Objects links
Use Learn with Objects Master 8: The Fortune Teller