GCSE. Fine Art. Year 10 Summer Exam /
Coursework Unit 1: ‘Inside / Outside.’ 2004.

Year 10 GCSE Students at William de Ferrers School do an internal exam in July.

This gives them an opportunity to experience a 10-hour exam, the result of which becomes their first piece of coursework (unit 1).

The theme for the exam in 2004 (the first year of the students GCSE course finishing in 2005) was:
‘Inside / Outside.’

Students could take inspiration from the following paper, or use their own ideas, as long as they could relate it to the theme.

Inside - the human body

The inside of the human body is complex and miraculous.

You may have been inside the Body Zone in the Millennium Dome with its imaginative interpretation of how the body works. It may have given you lots of ideas to explore further.

You may have some x-rays from the last time you were in hospital.

Many artists have studied anatomy. For example:

• Leonardo da Vinci.
• Judy Chicago's great ‘Birth Project.’

• Rembrandt van Rijn's study of a flayed ox.
• Chaim Soutine.
• Herman Nitsch.
• Damien Hirst's preserved cross-sections of animals.

Are they mysteriously beautiful or horrific?

Inside - the mind

Inside our minds there exists a secret and personal world, often very different to the image we portray to the outside world.

This might be a challenging theme for you to follow, if you dare to take us inside the real you.

How do you feel inside? How can you show this in your work?

You can tell a lot about the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo's life and her deepest feelings from her paintings. They speak of pain and struggle.

You might study the 19th-century British artist Richard Dadd who had a private world inside his head and in his paintings.

Surrealist artists like Rene Magritte and Salvador Dali often explore personal themes inside their minds and in their dreams.

Edvard Munch was an artist whose paintings like ‘The Scream’ were full of the emotion he felt inside.

Outside - the mind and body

Our own bodies are environments of their own covered in flesh, skin, hair and decorated or clothed in an individual fashion.

The surface of the body exterior can be young and as smooth as marble, or old, wrinkly and as tough as leather.

Rodin's sculptures explore the surfaces of the human form.

The monumental paintings by Jenny Saville explore today's issues about physical beauty and society's preoccupation with plastic surgery and weight control.

What appears to others is only an exterior. Inside, our minds and bodies are the human qualities that make us individuals; able to feel emotions, touch, taste, hear, smell and see.

We can experience joy or pain, love or hate, anger, loneliness, distress, passion and laughter.

Inside - the Earth

The inside of the Earth has always fascinated mankind. We dig into it to discover its mineral wealth. Scientists explore its geology.

The ancient Greeks believed in Hades, the underworld.

Jules Verne's journey to the centre of the Earth describes a fictional subterranean world inside the Earth.

You may be able to visit an old mine or quarry museum as part of your research. The museum may also include the artwork of local miners. You might study artists like Josef Herman.

The idea of life inside the Earth is also explored in comic and science-fiction novels.

Artists like Piero della Francesca in the 16th century and Stanley Spencer in the 20th century explored the theme of resurrection - rising from the dead.

Outside - environments

Landscapes, townscapes, seascapes, sky-scapes.

These environments can depict air, water, earth, life, space and perspective.

As the seasons change, so does the landscape.

Over thousands of years the land is transformed by the natural processes of erosion, floods, volcanoes, earthquakes and tornadoes.

Man also changes his environment; by pollution, waste and destruction, but also through planting and building.

• Sea.

  You could compare Turner's storms at sea with the Japanese prints of Hokusai. The ‘Great Wave’ depicts the fluid movement and powerful force of the tidal wave through colour and line.

• Sky.

  Peter Lanyon's paintings are about his impressions of the land seen from above and the feelings of movement when flying a glider.

• Land.

  David Hockney's large paintings of the Grand Canyon show strange perspective and blazing hot colour.

  For surreal and fantasy landscapes look at Max Ernst’s ‘Europe after the Rain,’ or Yves Tanguy’s ‘Imprevu’.

  For gardens, compare Monet's painting at Giverny with the abstract canvases of Gillian Ayres.

The paintings of Jock McFadyen explore urban walkways, old cinemas, shops, train stations. He captures the personalities of buildings which are scarred and weathered by life and human beings.

For contemporary buildings you could look at the ‘The Guggenheim Museum,’ Bilbao, Spain or ‘The Gherkin’ (30, St Mary Axe) in London.

Appearances of buildings are transformed by the changing light from morning till night, from summer to winter. Different moods and atmospheres are created as shadows are cast.

Monet's paintings of Rouen Cathedral are the perfect example of how changing light and colour transforms buildings.

Linking Inside and Outside

Doorways and windows are enticing. We often cannot resist looking through them. They are a link between inside and outside and can offer a means of escape or a route to safety.

Photographers have often used the frame within a frame that a door or window offers; with a view looking inside or outside, perhaps with a figure framed inside the doorway.

The French photographer Henri Cartier Bresson is a useful reference here.

Peter de Hooch used the idea in the 16th century Netherlands.

Edward Hopper used doorways and windows, and the contrast between inside and outside, to enhance the mood and atmosphere of his paintings.