We had a brilliant Art Academic Excellence workshop this term after school. Mark Cazalet, who is an artist and lecturer at the Royal School of Drawing, came to lead a session based around the Poussin painting ‘The Triumph of David’. This huge figurative painting features over 30 different characters in a complex narrative composition. We were each given a character and together we recreated the painting as a ‘tableau vivant’- then analysing what we thought our character might be thinking and feeling, we used charcoal to create a mask showing the relevant expression.

Finally in just 10 minutes we made a sketch of the entire composition showing how Poussin’s image leads us into the complex narrative by guiding our eye through colour, leading lines, the gazes and poses of the figures and use of light. We all learned a huge amount about how to read an image and how we can respond as artists and viewers.

Rev Crompton-Battersby, Art Teacher