Children should learn pictures line by line, group by group, by reading not books but pictures themselves, Charlotte Mason writes. At a time when colored reproductions were non-existent, she required each student in her schools to own their own set of art prints. In this episode of the podcast, we’re going to discuss how and why to teach art appreciation in the Charlotte Mason Method.
Listen Now:
Charlotte Mason, Volume 6 (Amazon) (Living Book Press – use code DELECTABLE for 10% off!)
ADE Vol 6, Chapt 10 Reading List
Emily’s Picture Study Portfolios from Simply Charlotte Mason
Artist Study from Riverbend Press
Picture Study from A Humble Place
Emily
Welcome to A Delectable Education, the podcast that spreads the feast of the Charlotte Mason Method. I’m Emily Kiser and I’m here with…
Nicole
…Nicole Williams…
Liz
…and Liz Cottrill.
Emily
Well, not all ideas can be conveyed in words alone. How does one communicate the glory of a sunset or the loving look a child exchanges with his mother? We need to learn the language of images and the great artists of the world help us to do that.
In volume four, Charlotte Mason says, “there are those present with us whom God whispers in the ear through whom he sends a direct message to the rest. Among these messengers are the great painters who interpret to us some of the meanings of life. To read their messages aright is a thing due from us.” That’s kind of weighty words. We have a duty to read the artists aright. Nicole, why don’t you try to lay it out how Charlotte Mason thought we could do this with our children.
Nicole
Yeah. Well, in a Charlotte Mason education, Picture Study, that’s what we call it, Artist Appreciation, but we often refer to the lesson as Picture Study, begins in Form 1. And it, with some additions, it doesn’t really change all the way through school, right? I mean, you truly have every single term, an artist and six pictures assigned, from that same artist, so that the students are really learning that artist’s style, the colors they use, the things they’re painting about. And they’re just really coming to know them even if they haven’t seen that particular painting, they might see it on a wall and recognize it. So they’re really familiar with that artist.
Just for clarification, Charlotte Mason stated that the pupils should learn how to appreciate rather than how to produce. And we are talking about Art Appreciation and there are subjects in which they would learn how to produce some art.
Emily
We’re going to talk about that in a coming episode.
Nicole
Right. But for now, what we’re talking about is truly just learning to recognize. But there’s also an aspect of this is that they are learning to visualize it and be able to tell back. So like every episode we talk about narrating what they have learned or taken in and they, it’s no different with this.
Emily
Correct.
Nicole
So again, they’re doing it the same way all the way through with some additions, in that as they as they grow they’re sometimes drawing a portion of that painting–
Emily
Always from memory. I can’t stress that enough.
Nicole
Yes, good. And and often in the early days on chalkboard and so maybe maybe that’s different for you in your home but–
Emily
Whiteboard.
Nicole
Whiteboard, yeah, something that it’s just discarded; it’s really about the memory more than it is the ability to draw it.
Emily
Correct.
Nicole
Right.
So then in Form 3, so seventh and eighth grade, we see assigned on the programs where Charlotte Mason said study, describe, and draw from memory details of six reproduction of pictures by the artist. But those drawings were more detailed, not just a simple line drawing. And again, from memory.
Emily
Yes. And often she’ll say to do it in a monochrome, like you’re not trying to match the colors. You’re just trying to capture some of the light and shade, the form.
Liz
Of the whole picture?
Emily
Details. So you might focus on a face or a particular tree on the riverbank or some hands or something like that.
Nicole
Hands are what I always think of, I don’t know why.
And then in high school, there is an added thing and that is that they’re reading some books. So the books would teach art history and then they have some architecture books too. And this really just pulls together for them the understanding of, I’ve lost the word, like the fields, the…
Emily
Schools.
Nicole
Schools of styles and throughout history and kind of just kind of, I feel like in a lot of ways everything we do is that the students are experiencing it first and then they’re getting words and more explanation later.
Emily
Yeah, just like we have been talking recently about Grammar naming the parts of speech that they’ve been using. They’re absorbing all of that information unconsciously. Like when we’re introducing the artists, we’re not saying this was a Romantic painter and this is a Baroque painter and this is a Rococo painter, whatever it is, we’re not giving them any of that information. So moms take a breath of, sigh of relief. You do not have to know any of that information to do Picture Study well in your home.
But then in high school, these highest forms, they’re actually starting to read about that and putting the people into their schools.
Liz
But by then it means something to them because they’ve known these different artists. Now does this have to tie to the historical time period they’re studying in history?
Emily
Charlotte Mason would say absolutely say yes. It was the humanities, the literature, the art, the music that had to illuminate a historical time period. So in those upper forms it’s especially important that the time period you’re studying you’re doing your artist from that time period.
Yeah well let’s talk a little bit about the lesson format. So this is a very simple lesson to include and I don’t know why people are so intimidated, maybe, that they keep them back from doing it. It’s one 10-minute lesson a week and it is one of those lessons of delight for most children.
Liz
And easy to implement. It takes so little prep on your part. It’s like why would you leave out one of your easiest parts?
Emily
So we recommend another 20 minutes in high school, so Forms 4-6, one additional 20 minute lesson for that reading that Nicole was just talking about, where they get that more systematic. It’s tied to their historical time period, and hopefully the artist that they’re studying is going to be put into their context by the time they get to that.
So this is what an individual Picture Study lesson looks like. And this is, it’s so easy guys. You can do it. You have your children look at one picture for several minutes and take in that image, and make a picture in their mind. That’s what I always say. And close your eyes. See if you can see it. If some of the details are fuzzy, open your eyes and look at the picture a little more until you have it.
And then I have my kids turn it over. So I know when they’re done with their looking, but it’s like three to four minutes if any younger kids can do like one to two, you know, it is training your eyes to absorb more information. And then we narrate what we saw.
Now I have noticed from doing this with my own children, but also many, many other children, they, children tend to focus more on the detail that was interesting to them first. And so I came up with this, I actually may have borrowed it from somebody, I don’t know, but I started doing this thing, maybe after we went to a field trip to an art museum. And I said, okay, before you start telling me, I want you to pretend that I work at the museum and you want to come in and see this particular painting and you don’t know the name and you can’t remember the artist. And you have to describe it well enough to me so that I, as a museum worker, can know which picture you’re talking about.
They love this. And if I forget to say this, someone will remind me, remember, mom, you work at the museum. But that has been much better in that they first tell me the big picture and, you know, instead of the there’s 32 ducks on the pond, whatever it is that they like spent their time counting all of those, those things. And so that has worked really well for us.
And then after they’re done narrating it, which again just takes a couple minutes, we can have a tiny discussion. And not like what school of painting is this? or how the artists use chiaroscuro to bring this figure out of the background or whatever it is, right? It is what time of day do you think it is? What do think that person is doing? You know, anything that they might want to talk about more, you might not even have the answer. You might just ask the question and they think about it a little longer, right?
Liz
That was me for sure because I didn’t even see the picture so I would just ask those questions so that I could picture it in my mind.
Emily
Yeah. So Charlotte Mason was adamant that they do six pictures per term and I just want to affirm what you said, Nicole, that they will see pictures they never studied by their artists and say, is that a Millet? or that looks like a Van Gogh? because you, after seeing multiple examples of an artist’s work, do absorb their style.
I remember as an art student in a college going to the Art Institute of Chicago and from across the room seeing a picture and just like going, I think that’s such and such, you know, it just gets engrained into you even though I’d never seen that picture before. It was just something about the artist’s style. And no one was describing this is what to look for in a Renoir or whatever. So it’s very simple.
I should say those images that they do– so we have six pictures and there’s 11 weeks of lessons. A short biography can be read to interest them in the artist’s life. Usually those really help set the stage of why they painted, what they did, in what place they were at. Those drawings from memory that start out as simple like the main lines or principal lines of the picture, just showing where figures and objects are in the picture, from memory.
As they get older then they’re doing those details up and in the highest form she would actually have…and you’ll notice in Form 3 it was every picture, they were supposed to do details from every picture that they had studied whereas in earlier forms it would just maybe be a couple you know or one a term. In higher schools they were to do a full monochrome reproduction of it from memory, not a copy. Charlotte Mason said it was a mistake to ever have the children copy directly from the picture because she said it would make them lose reverence for the work of art. So they are free to do that but just from memory and that’s increasing their powers of visualization.
So this is a very simple lesson that everybody can do but it has a huge impact on a child’s life, and it’s very enjoyable and it’s a great break between two very meaty books. I’m thinking about my second and third graders reading Pilgrim’s Progress, it’s a great relief to have. It lightens the load.
And Charlotte Mason did believe that we see this in the programs that everybody was to have their own set of pictures. And so I do get a set of pictures for each of my kids. It’s an investment, but they, I will see them pulling their binders out, they have them in the page protectors, and re-looking at them. And they’ve noticed how similar that Tanner’s picture, excuse me, Monet’s pictures were to Turner and they’re literally comparing, this reminds me of this one and I said, I had never told him this, said, actually Monet was inspired when he went to England to escape the Franco-Prussian War. He saw Turner pictures in the art galleries and that inspired him and they’ve made that connection on their own just from looking at past artists that they had studied.
I could go on and on, guys. We’re moving on. It’s a very simple lesson. I could talk about it for a long time.
The objectives that we have is to store their mental gallery, their art gallery that they carry along with them with beautiful images to increase their powers of attention and visualization. This helps with their reading and their writing and so many other subjects that use visualization.
And then as Nicole is saying, those older students then do get that direct teaching on composition, even some design elements in their reading books. But they have been unconsciously absorbing it for years. So it’s just really kind of putting, like a Book of Centuries kind of collects the things and then we see the big pattern when we get more and more added to it.
Our prep as teachers would be, of course, we have to get pictures for our kids to look at. There are economical ways, I know families that have bought art print calendars on clearance after January comes and they get those or art books or whatever. But you might also want to learn a little bit more about the artist, share biographical information that I mentioned.
Some resources. So I actually have put together a bunch of these Picture Study Portfolios. They’re sold by Simply Charlotte Mason. Inside each of these you will get not just six but eight pictures that are UV coated so they’re not going to fade on you which is good because we display these up in our school room, which is a sunroom and gets a lot of sun.
Liz
They’re pretty heavy.
Emily
And they’re scratch resistant so they are durable. There’s eight so you can choose your favorite six or do all eight if you so desire. And then I have a booklet just again outlining the steps of Picture Study. I include a brief biography in here and then there are notes on the pictures. So if you have time at the end of your lesson you could read a little bit more about the picture or pull out a couple of facts. So maybe your prep is just finding the one or two things that your kids would be interested in. Maybe you read the whole thing. Maybe you take one of those other days that you’re not doing a drawing or looking at a new picture and you do a deeper picture talk using the notes in the book for a deeper look at those.
So those are the ones that I have put together, but there are also prints available from Riverbend Press and A Humble Place has a very similar Picture Study package. Yeah, so there’s other places to get them.
So what questions do people have about Picture Study do you think mom?
Liz
I think that once you’ve done it, you can’t not do it again. You know, so the only people that don’t do it the ones who haven’t tried, you know, but I think a lot of moms who don’t have an art background like you are going to ask, you know, they’re worried that their child will ask them something they don’t have the answer to. And I would just say, you know, that is true in almost every single subject. And as parents and teachers, Mason said, we need to become adept at turning the question back to the child. What do you think? Why might that be? How could… and that kind of thing and get them to think about it. And you can always tell a child, I don’t know, I’ll look that up and see if I can find out for you.
If you don’t know art terminology, it’s okay. I know nothing about art and I’ve had my children look at pictures since even before I heard of Charlotte Mason and they all have an eye for art and are artistic children. In fact, [to Emily] instead of being the docent at the museum you could tell the children pretend I’m grandma and tell her what it’s like because that’s what I used to tell my children. I have no idea what’s on this page. You describe it to me.
It really is about the visualization skill that Emily mentioned, which is so important for life, is building eye memorization. Sometimes I would ask my children, besides the components that you’ve mentioned, I would just ask them what ideas they got from this picture. What did this make you think about? Or if you only had one word, what word would you use besides beautiful? Because a couple of my boys always would just say beautiful.
Yeah, so and I would just say that this is just so easy to prep. You can do it in the summer before school starts and just pick out your artists and get your packets together. And it’s just one of your quicker, easier things to do in a week. Do you guys know of any other objections that people have to the subject? They don’t have time or…
I know another one is people say well we do it at co-op and I would say so do it at home too.
Nicole
That’s a good answer. I was gonna say don’t. Yeah don’t do it at co-op.
Liz
Well it has a purpose like Emily said for lightning the morning load. She put those delightful things in there to make all their tougher subjects more bearable.
Emily
Yeah, and actually I think it’s the only thing my seventh grader looks forward to on Tuesdays because Tuesdays is his long day. We have to have Thursdays be a little bit shorter because of library and so he has an extra longer lesson on Tuesdays but right in the middle of the day he gets Picture Study.
Nicole
Yeah, it’s so easy to do. It doesn’t, you know, there’s not really a benefit to doing it in a co-op. I just think it’s–
Emily
And at home it’s one of the few lessons you really can do with your 1st through 12th grade…
Liz
…all together. It’s definitely a whole family thing. And that’s another huge benefit.
Nicole
I also just want to tell a quick anecdote that a couple of years ago I did a morning of lessons immersion class with more than 40 students.
Emily
Adults.
Nicole
Adults, yeah.
And we did a Picture Study. And while you might think adults, they have better visualization. Usually that’s the opposite.
Liz
Yeah, for sure.
Nicole
But I went person by person in order. So my last person was a man in the back of the room, actually. But all 40 of them had something different to tell them, all the way. I honestly, if I’d had time, but I was trying to follow our morning schedule, I would have just kept going back around again.
So there is something for everybody to share, even if you have a large family. But I like that what your idea allows them to tell more rather than just she was wearing a red scarf.
Emily
Oh, they give me all the details. I just make them tell me…they would get into there’s 32 ducks on the pond before they told me this is a landscape, you know, with a mill in the back. So just give the big picture and then they can add all of the things.
Liz
I would also just add that when you have an interrupted day or you have to go to a doctor visit or something that’s not in your normal scheme and so you’ve only got time to do a few lessons. This is one everybody drops because they think they have to do the math every day and I just want to tell you this is just as important as math. Everything at the feast may not take up as much space but they’re equal weight.
Emily
Charlotte Mason tells us that “this is what we wish to do for children – to cause the eye to rest not unconsciously, but consciously on some object of beauty, which will leave in their minds an image of delight for all their lives to come.”
We hope that you’ve been inspired to spread the feast of visual ideas for your students through Picture Study. Next week, we will be turning our attention to music, another subject that has new ideas for us to ponder. Please join us next time as we continue to spread the feast of the Charlotte Mason Method.