The Rule of Law in the Visual Arts

"Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts – the book of their deeds, the book of their words and the book of their art." – John Ruskin

To make teaching the rule of law a truly interdisciplinary experience for students, we have added a visual arts component to supplement the reading and film lists found elsewhere on the Teacher Resources site. While historical texts, primary documents, and literature provide explanations and examples of the rule of law, and films can dramatize the concept, it is the visual arts that allow students to study the symbolism and iconography that, over the years, have come to reflect the rule of law visually.

The rule of law is not just an abstract concept; it is a vision of our nation’s democratic ideals that has revealed itself in America’s artistic heritage. We see this vision in paintings and sculpture, in popular cartoons and illustrations, in America’s changing architectural tastes, and in the folk art of untrained and often anonymous citizens. All of these visual artifacts tell the story of America’s evolution as a nation conceived from the belief in the rule of law as the foundation of our Constitution, our representative form of government, our economic system, and the rights and responsibilities we have as citizens in a free and open society.

Using The REED-LO Scaffolding Approach to Art lesson template for teaching students about art, the REED-LO Matrix, and the Sample Lesson Plans below, teachers will be able to engage students in decoding the symbolism and iconography of visual images to understand more clearly how artists have depicted the rule of law and its connections to such related issues as justice, good and evil, right and wrong, freedom and responsibility, equal rights, fairness, and citizenship.

We also provide an Annotated List of Suggested Visual Arts representing a range of artistic genres, historical periods, and themes, and, where possible, links to the works.

We encourage you, the teacher, to use this material to improve your students’ skills in identifying and explaining symbolism, imagery, tone and mood in the visual arts. We also hope that you will find this material a valuable resource for interpreting the visual arts as a commentary on the rule of law in a historical context, and, that in so doing, your students will strengthen their own understanding of the importance of the rule of law in their daily lives and the necessity to preserve and protect it as the foundation for the rights and freedom we all enjoy.

The visual arts materials included here fulfill many of the requirements for Virginia’s Civics and Economics Standards CE 1c, CE 2a, CE 3a and b, and CE 8d.

NOTE: The Virginia Bar Association Rule of Law Project is indebted to B. Scott Crawford for his selfless contributions to “The Rule of Law in the Visual Arts. Former Director of Education at The Taubman Museum of Art in Roanoke, VA, Scott is an adjunct instructor in the history department at Virginia Western Community College and an adjunct instructor in the art history department at Virginia Tech. We wish to acknowledge his creation of the four lesson plans and his permission to use his copyrighted REED-LO materials below.

• The REED-LO Scaffolding Approach to Art (Word) (pdf)
• The REED-LO Matrix (Word) (pdf)
• Annotated List of Suggested Visual Arts (Word) (pdf)

Sample Lesson Plans

The website currently has four lesson plans, each aligned to the Virginia SOLs for eighth grade Civics and Economics. These lesson plans may be adapted to meet the teacher’s time constraints, student needs, and student ability level. Please, share these ideas with your colleagues, particularly if you teach in a combined civics-language arts class. As noted above, we encourage teachers to develop their own interdisciplinary lesson plans and submit them for possible inclusion here so that we may continue to expand the collection of existing plans.

Before using these lesson plans or reviewing the Annotated List of Suggested Visual Arts, we encourage you to read the REED-LO SCAFFOLDING APPROACH TO ART and the accompanying REED-LO Matrix to assist you in using these lesson plans and developing your own.