Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Art Appreciation


We are starting a new artist. We will be studying Georges Seurat for the last weeks of school this year.

We study an artist and their paintings for about 6-9 weeks. We read about him, study 6-9 of his works and do a few notebooking or lapbooking pages. Sometimes I follow the schedule on Ambleside, sometimes we study an artist that lived in the time period we are studying for school, and sometimes I just choose one of the ones from the Ambleside list that we haven't covered yet.

Besides the list of artists Ambleside has copies of the work of each artist that you can print out and use with your study. If the pictures on Ambleside are to my liking I use them, if not I use the images at Wikimedia. Just click this link http://commons.wikimedia.org/  and then type in the name of the artist you are studying. Click the artists name at the top of the search result page. From there you can choose those paintings, sculptures, etc. that you would like to have your children view and discover and compare. I always choose photos that are not scantily clothed or unclothed. I also like to include a variety of prints: drawings, landscapes, portraits, etc. The Wikimedia page does have scantily dressed and not dressed humans so please view the pages there and on Ambleside without your children in the room.

I print out/save only the ones I want to study. All the pictures on Wikimedia that I printed were public domain. Be careful also of books you borrow from the library if you are trying to avoid exposing your children to this. If I need to show a book to my children, that has objectionable pictures in it, I use sticky notes to cover the exposed parts that I want covered. That way it does not harm the book. I am always pleased when I get a juvenile biograophy of an artist and the book has no objectionable pictures in it. The 2 by Suerat that I have listed below had absolutely not naked pictures.
If possible, read a short biography or two about that artist sometime during your study of his or her work. I have found several old texts about artists at archive.org that are very good. Sometimes older books are better when studying History, even Art History. I have them listed and linked below for your convenience.

This study is not a lesson in art criticism. Display the picture in a prominent location in your home so children can look at it throughout the week. We used to put them on the wall in our dining room where we did most of school. Now my son makes the art print his desktop wallpaper so he sees it every day.

Books and Websites

Ambleside Online Art Schedule - 2012-2013 TERM 3 Georges Seurat
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Georges_Seurat

Artist Study -- Charlotte Mason Style

Georges Seurat (Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists)

We love these books. Check Amazon, other used book websites, or your library. The link above takes you to Amazon.

Seurat and La Grande Jatte by Robert Burleigh

This was a wonderful book. My son really enjoyed it. He especially liked the search they had him do. Looking for specific things in the picture like a monkey on a leash.



 
 

Art Appreciation Lapbook by HOAC







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1 comment:

Mary said...

Thank you for this post. This is one area of our homeschool that I am really bad at! I want to do artist and composer studies but there never seems to be time.

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