Elementary: Night Wing: Metropolitan Area Composite II by Yvonne Jacquette (Art Card)

About the Artist

Yvonne Jacquette is known for painting landscapes that show views from the air. In addition to being a successful artist, she taught art to college students for many years.

About the Art

Night Wing: Metropolitan Area Composite II was created from numerous studies of the New York to Newark metropolitan area as seen from the window of a plane while flying at night.

Look Closely

• Look closely at the image from top to bottom. What shapes do you recognize?
• What features in the land can you find? Look for car headlights on busy roads, streetlights shining in residential areas, and even a body of water reflecting the city’s glow.

Discuss

• This painting shows an aerial view of a city. How is an aerial view different from a street view?
• This view does not show an exact map of a city. The painting is a composite of several views. What do you think the word composite means in relation to this work?
• Jacquette created many different sketches of what she saw from her airplane window and rearranged features and changed scale and size to create this composition. What do you think she might want us to notice or wonder?
• In what ways is this painting different from a photograph of this view?

Reflect

• Why do you think this artist is inspired to paint places she sees from the window of a plane?
• What places have you visited that you would like to paint or draw? Why are these places special to you? What would you want people to notice and wonder about the place you want to paint?

Learn More

Visit the “Learn More” sidebar to find more information about the work of art and artist and find other works of art that relate to the subject matter, media, and techniques used by the artist.