Artist Study -- Charlotte Mason Style

Miss Mason suggested that a different artist be studied consistently for an entire term -- up to 12 weeks. During that time, at least 6 different works of art by that same artist should be studied. That's only one work of art for every two weeks, so it's very doable.

But of course, you can do one work each week or even one each day. The point is that you focus on one artist and immerse yourselves in his style, his methods, and his images until you know that artist.

This artist study is mainly done through what CM called picture talks. During this lesson, your role as teacher is so easy. You just let the art speak to the child. You don't say much if anything. Just let the art speak to the child. The little that you do say may include some background relevant to the painting, the artist, or the time period. But by no means do you need to give a lecture about the work. This post at Barefoot Voyage is very helpful in explaining picture talks.

Don't let the term picture talk mislead you. You don't have to do all the talking! The child should be doing most of the talking as he describes what he sees and admires in the painting. You can nudge the conversation with some questions, however. (See the helps lower on the page.)

Then leave the art work available to be seen through out the week until another piece of art is studied.

I'll give you a glimpse into artist study at our home........

Background
For that term we were studying Renoir. We had already studied approximately 30 of his paintings, one each day. Each day my method is the same. I hand the art print to my daughter and let her study it for 1-2 minutes, until she feels confident that she knows it well enough to narrate it back to me. Then I take the picture from her and listen as she describes everything she saw.

Problem
What if during the narration, she describes something incorrectly? For example, she says there are two people in the background but, in fact, there are five people? After she is done with her narration, I would say, "You said there were two people in the background, but take another look at the painting and make sure." Then I would hand her the print and allow her to look more closely and amend her narration.

Don't interrupt the narration if at all possible. Wait until the end to allow your child to make corrections.

If she doesn't mention more subjective things, I may ask her. For example, "What is the mood of this painting? Would you like to be in the scene painted? If you were there, what would you hear, smell, or feel?" I often use the questions listed here; in fact, I keep this laminated page with my weekly homeschool schedule. Asking one or two different questions each day gives our artist study more variety and often opens the door to some great mother-daughter discussions.

The Lesson
Then we came to two portraits of Renoir's son: Portrait of Claude (Coco) Renoir, below on the left, and The Clown, farther down.

I realized that the notes in the art book had some interesting facts that my daughter would be able to relate to and that would help her understand the painting. I only occasionally share the book's notes since I'd rather her do the thinking herself. But these notes about The Clown would help her more knowledgably contrast the two paintings.

I didn't read them, I simply paraphrased it in conversational language: Renoir's regular model had not come to sit for that day's painting. So Renoir's son had to act as a stand-in. The boy complained about the itchy stockings and being forced to stand still. Renoir both threatened and bribed the boy to get him to pose for the painting.

After our regular study of each painting, complete with narration, I had my daughter contrast the two pieces. She mentioned things such as the pose, the background, the child being older in one, the child's mood, the colors and condition of the painting.

The Creating
Then I gave her a blank piece of paper cut to the proportions of Portrait of Claude (Coco) Renoir and asked her to draw and then color a copy of the painting as closely as she could. You can see her result beside the original.

I pointed out all the ways that her rendition matched Renoir's original and praised her. Then I asked her to place her work alongside his and point out what was different or lacking in her version. In this way, I am not criticizing her work but I am teaching her to look critically at art

Then we displayed her artwork in a blank frame hanging on the wall of the homeschool room and moved on to science. Later that piece went into our art notebook.

After studying four or five more paintings by Renoir, we were finished with our book of art prints and moved on to another artist.

Note that we do not duplicate every painting we study. So far, I've chosen to do this with only one of each artist's paintings. In this way, art study is very quick each day, and only occasionally does it take longer. If you'd like ideas for doing reproductions of the art you study, read Hands-on Artist Study: Making Reproductions.

According to CM, there are two reasons to study artists.

1. To cultivate a love of beauty.

2. To hone the ability to see.

So those are our purposes: We encourage children to interact with art by giving them opportunities to do so. And we train their seeing by asking them to narrate back the artwork during the picture talks.

Furthermore, we have a particular attitude when we study art. Sidford says in the article Art and Enjoyment that endeavors in the study of art should be

urged when they are a source of pleasure, not otherwise. I do not wish to infer that the whole of a child's course of study must be a 'primrose path,' far from it, but the essence of Art is enjoyment. . .

If art is beauty, then that beauty should be enjoyable. So make modifications to your artist study to make it fit your particular child. Make it fun; make it a joy.

For some children, that will mean adding field trips to experience art. For others, you will need to add hands-on art activities (see book recommendations below). Some children would be excited by exploring an art site on the Internet (see links below). What do your children think is fun?

These artists were ones that Charlotte Mason specifically suggested.

Millet
Cassatt
Monet
Raphael
Grandma Moses
Da Vinci
Michaelangelo
Renoir
Van Gogh
Rembrandt
Wyeth

But you certainly don't have to limit yourself to that short list. Need help choosing? Try some of these lists:

Penny Gardner offers dozens of worthy artists, each linked to her favorite online resource.

On the Ambleside Online artist study pages, you will find even more options for artists who created timeless works of art worthy of study. The current artist study schedule and previous years' studies are available.

If you don't mind using many online resources, you can use Ambleside's schedule and your entire artist study will be free. Links are available for the artist's works. You can just view them from the computer screen. (Many people set the week's art as their computer screen saver so that it is constantly visible.)

Another nice resource for artist study can be found at the 4Real Forums. There is a list of artists, and for each artist a thread including images, biographical links, and ideas.

To see how a Charlotte Mason artist study schedule might look for an entire year, look at this example for an introductory year, this one for a study of the Middle Ages, and this one dealing with Renaissance and Modern Age.

If you want help for designing a chronological study of art, try this Art History Study outline. It has suggested artists, discussion topics, books to read, and even works of art.

Note that your chosen artist can tie into your history studies as these last two examples show. But you don't have do to that.

Oh, and one last thing. Remember to consider your children's natural interests when you choose an artist. Read LindaFay's blog entry about this for more details.

When you study each artist, you will want your intermediate level child to know the general time frame of his career and what artistic movement he is part of. I suggest an artist timeline. Keep a record of each artist and arrange it in chronological order. Label each artist's school of thought.

Or if you already keep a timeline for history, simply add in the artists to that timeline. Give your children the perspective of when each artist lived and worked.

This is a basic art timeline with most of the major artists and all of the artistic periods. Look for the link at the top left for a printable version!