Charlotte Mason Art for Middle School

Welcome to A Mother’s Thinking Love: Living Ideas, Lovingly Shared! When we first started homeschooling, I was terrified at the thought of teaching art. Although I took art classes for thirteen years in my own education, I did not feel prepared to teach art myself. Over the years, however, we have developed our own methods for studying art that bring us great joy. Today, I’m going to share some of the ways we approach this study in the middle school years. Join me for: Charlotte Mason Art for Middle School!

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Why We Study Art

If you would have asked me about the importance of art in education eight years ago, I wouldn’t have been able to give you a thoughtful response. Honestly, I probably would have said that the “three Rs” were the most important aspect of education. Wow have I been proven wrong. When I first began reading about Charlotte Mason’s philosophy of education, I noticed that something called “picture study” was very important to her. I didn’t really understand it, but, thankfully, the wonderful mothers from Ambleside Online did, and I followed their picture study rotation our first year of homeschooling. We did study those great works of art, not really sure what we were doing, but, over time, the lessons meant to teach my child were slowly shaping me. Charlotte Mason had this, among other things, to say about the role of art in education:

“How do we prepare a child, again, to use the aesthetic sense with which he appears to come provided? His education should furnish him with whole galleries of mental pictures, pictures by great artists old and new;––Jozef Israels‘ Pancake Woman, his Children by the Sea; Millet‘s Feeding the Birds, First Steps, Angelus; Rembrandt’s Night Watch, The Supper at Emmaus; Velasquez’s Surrender of Breda,––in fact, every child should leave school with at least a couple of hundred pictures by great masters hanging permanently in the halls of his imagination, to say nothing of great buildings, sculpture, beauty of form and colour in things he sees. Perhaps we might secure at least a hundred lovely landscapes too,––sunsets, cloudscapes, starlight nights. At any rate he should go forth well furnished because imagination has the property of magical expansion, the more it holds the more it will hold.: – Towards a Philosophy of Education

“As for that aesthetic ‘appetency’ (to use Coleridge’s word) upon which so many of the gentle pleasures of life depend, it is open to many disasters: it dies of inanition when beauty is not duly presented to it, beauty in words, in pictures and music, in tree and flower and sky. The function of the sense of beauty is to open a paradise of pleasure for us; but what if we grow up admiring the wrong things, or, what is morally worse, arrogant in the belief that it is only we and our kind who are able to appreciate and distinguish beauty? It is no small part of education to have seen much beauty, to recognize it when we see it, and to keep ourselves humble in its presence.” – Towards a Philosophy of Education (quotes courtesy of Ambleside Online)

Now, I try to insert works of art into every day.

Resources for Charlotte Mason Middle School Art

• The Arts: A Visual Encyclopedia DK This is a brilliant and beautiful option. It covers various forms of art throughout history in a big picture way. While it doesn’t provide in-depth information, it is a great option for planning and introducing new art studies.
• The Story of Painting by Janson The Story of Painting tells, as it says, the story of art from cave painting to modern times. I would recommend it for upper grade levels. I think older students, with more history study accomplished, would benefit most from the connections made between history and art.
• Built to Last by Macaulay I shared how we use Built to Last in this blog post. Thankfully, in reading Charlotte Mason’s works, I realized that architecture is a necessary, and enjoyable, aspect of art study.
• Giotto and Medieval Art We studied Giotto as one of our primary artists for the Middle Ages, but this book covers more than Giotto. It’s a wonderful addition to your Middle Ages history studies.
• Fra Angelico: Preaching through His Paintbrush by Hatcher We will use this book as part of our study of Fra Angelico as a bridge to Renaissance art.
• Memoria Press Art Cards We purchased these cards years ago. Although they are marketed to grades K-2, these are high quality prints, from Middle ages to modern times, that will last for years.

A New Addition: Homeschool Art Box

As I previously stated, I was intimidated by the idea of teaching art. We have found ways to manage over the years, but I was thrilled to find Homeschool Art Box to help support our art study this year. Homeschool Art Box sends you everything you need for artist study, picture study, and an art project, inspired by the artist, each month. They even provided step-by-step directions for the art project, if you are like me and need them.

Biography in Art Study: A Budget-Friendly Recommendation

As you may have noticed from previous posts, I am a big fan of biographies. We use them in every subject area. Stories of the Painters by Amy Steedman contains short biographies of nearly forty well-known artists throughout history. The length of each story, and the use of narrative writing, makes this book a good fit for a wide-variety of ages. It will last you for years. You can also listen to it, for free, through Librivox!

I hope you have enjoyed: Charlotte Mason Art for Middle School. Integrating art study throughout our days has brought us great delight and added much joy. You can incorporate art study into your days in so many ways. You don’t need a curriculum or plan. Get creative! How do you study art in your homeschool? Share your ideas in the comments!