Winter term always brings my favorite fine arts element of our Classical Conversations morning. Resourcing the book Discovering Great Artists, we learn about the style and technique of many great artists, and then enjoy ourselves while completing a related activity.
This winter, we've enjoyed learning about European artists who lived during the time of the Renaissance. We've studied Giotto, Ghiberti, Angelico, Dürer, Michelangelo, and El Greco. Above, you can see two of my daughter's related projects. On the left, she made egg tempera paint using crushed chalk and egg yolk. Giotto made his paint using egg yolk mixed with insects, berries, or minerals that he ground into a fine powder. On the right, she made Florentine relief panels, like Ghiberti. Ghiberti was best known for creating the bronze doors of the Florence Baptistery. (If you are unfamiliar with his work, check it out here. It's simply fascinating.)
She spent another week attempting to paint while lying on her back representing Michelangelo painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. I love History.com's lists of Things You May Not Know, so I found the one on the Sistine Chapel worth reading. It states that Michelangelo designed special scaffolding so that he could stand while painting above his head, but he was still rather miserable for the four years it took him to paint the ceiling. I believe it! My daughter's Foundations class is a fairly athletic bunch, and they were complaining about how tired their arms and necks were after 10 minutes!
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