Ambleside Online Artist Schedule

Purchase This Term's Prints
Acknowledgements
Art sites: CGFA; Olga's Gallery also has a great collection.
Make your own screensaver using images you choose Free!
Pronunciation guide for artists' names
Picture Study Ideas from List Members
Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6, by Elbert Hubbard: A rambling discourse on what the artists were like; probably most suitable for Years 6-12. Contains chapters on Raphael, Da Vinci, Botticelli, Thorwaldsen, Gainsborough, Velasquez, Corot, Correggio, Bellini, Cellini, Abbey, Whistler
Lives of the Artists (download as plain text or pdf) written in the 1500's by Giorgio Vasari "The world is debtor to Vasari. He was not much of a painter and he failed at architecture, but he made up for lack of skill by telling all about what others were doing; and if his facts ever faltered, his imagination bridged the break. He is as interesting as Plutarch, as gossipy as Pepys, and as luring as Boswell." Elbert Hubbard Also in progress here. Suitable for older students.

Parents' Review articles that discuss art appreciation :
On Exhibitions; read quote below from this article about our purpose in picture study, and what to avoid.
Art and Literature in the Parents' Union School
Picture Talks
Thoughts on Flemish Painting
The Story of an Old Picture
How to Show Children Our National Gallery
Music and Art in PNEU Schools

Ambleside Online Term Schedule:
Term 1: Sept-Nov -- Term 2: Jan-March -- Term 3 April-June

We encourage Ambleside Online listmembers to follow this term calendar as a group for Artists, Composers, Plutarch, Shakespeare, Folksongs and Hymns. Staying on schedule together for these subjects is voluntary, but greatly enriches our studies as it enables us to share timely and topical resources and experiences on the list.

Just as a small point of interest, our policy of only using works of art that are available online for picture study is also the reason why we don't choose works of art for next term until nearly the end of the previous term--in the early days when we chose further ahead we found that we had to do the search work all over again at term time, because the websites we had chosen had moved their pictures around, so the links didn't quite work anymore. ;-/

2008-2009 TERM 1 Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) Florentine Renaissance
   1. Fortitude, c. 1470, Uffizi Gallery, in Florence, Italy (CM describes this in Vol 4, Book 2, pg 41)
   2. Primavera, c. 1482, Uffizi Gallery of Florence, Italy or, this more modest alternate detail
   3. Madonna of the Magnificat 1483-85, Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy
   4. The Birth of Venus, c. 1485, Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy or, this more modest detail
   5. A Young Man Being Introduced to the Seven Liberal Arts, c. 1484, Louvre in Paris, France
   6. Calumny of Apelles, or, more modest detail, 1494-95, Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy (described in CM's Vol 4 Book 1 pg 151)

2008-2009 TERM 2 Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) German Romantic (Biography)
   1. The Cross in the Mountains 1808, Gemäldegalerie in Dresden, Germany
   2. The Wanderer above the Mists, 1817-18, Kunsthalle in Hamburg, Germany
   3. Chalk Cliffs on Rugen, 1818-19, Stiftung Oskar Reinhart in Winterthur, Switzerland
   4. On Board a Sailing Ship, Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia
   5. Moon Rising over the Sea, 1821, Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia
   6. Woman at a Window, 1822, National Gallery in Berlin, Germany

2008-2009 TERM 3 Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) Dutch Post-Impressionist
Picture book suggestion: The Yellow House (be sure it's the one by Susan Goldman Rubin)
Some of Van Gogh's paintings, including Bedroom at Arles, are available to play with at Jigzone.com.
   1. The Starry Night, 1889, Museum of Modern Art, New York City
   2. The Chair and the Pipe, 1888, National Gallery in London, England
   3. The Night Cafe, 1888, Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut
   4. Self Portrait as an Artist, 1888, Paris, Arles, St. Remy, Auvers-sur-Oise
         OR Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
         OR Los Angeles County Museum of Art's LACMA West (maybe part of a traveling ehxibit?).
   5. The Vase with Sunflowers, 1888, Paris, Arles, St. Remy, Auvers-sur-Oise
   6. Bedroom at Arles, 1889, Musee d'Orsay in Paris, France

2009-2010 TERM 1 Raphael Sanzio (1483-1520) Italian High Renaissance (composers Vaughan Williams and Elgar, 20th Century British)

2009-2010 TERM 2 John Singer-Sargent (1856-1925) American (composer Grieg and Sibelius, nationalists)

2009-2010 TERM 3 Claude Monet (1840-1926) French Impressionist (composer Ravel, Impressionist)

2010-2011 TERM 1 Albrecht Durer (1471-1528) Italian Renaissance (composer Beethoven, Classical/Romantic)

2010-2011 TERM 2 Caravaggio (1571-1610) Italian Baroque (composer Vivaldi, Baroque)

2010-2011 TERM 3 (?) (composer Chopin, Romantic)

2011-2012 TERM 1 Jean Honore Fragonard (1732-1806) French Rococo (composer Mozart, Early classical/Rococo)

2011-2012 TERM 2 (?) (composer Mendelssohn, Romantic)

2011-2012 TERM 3 Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) American Illustrator (composer Bartok and Hindermith)

2001-2002 TERM 1 Renoir and Rodin

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (French, 1841-1919)
   1. La Grenouilliere, 1869
   2. Les Grands Boulevards, 1875
   3. La Loge, 1874
   4. Girl with a Watering Can
Auguste Rodin (French, 1840-1917)
   5. Monument to Balzac
   6. The Thinker

2001-2002 TERM 2 Ruisdael and de Hootch and Jacob van Ruisdael (1628/9-1682)

   1. Two Watermills and an Open Sluice near Singraven, 1650-52
   2. View of Haarlem with Bleaching Grounds, c.1665
   3. Windmill at Wijkbij Duursetede, c. 1670
Pieter de Hooch (Dutch, 1629-after 1684)
   4. Courtyard of a House in Delft, 1658
   5. Woman Peeling Apples, c. 1663
   6. At the Linen Closet, 1665

2001-2002 TERM 3 Gauguin, Cezanne, Seurat

Paul Gauguin (France, 1848-1903)    1. The Vision After the Sermon (Jacob Wrestling with an Angel), 1888
   2. Matamoe, 1892
Paul Cezanne (France, 1839-1906)
   3. Still Life with Compotier, 1879-1882
   4. Mont Sainte-Victoire, 1885-87
Georges Seurat (France, 1859-1891)
   5. Une Baignade, Asnieres (Bathers at Asnieres), 1883-84 (retouched 1887),
   6. A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of Grand Jatte, 1884-86

2002-2003 TERM 1 Copley and Stuart (Lee-Anne Penny's Study Notes)

John Singleton Copley (American, 1738-1815)
   1. Paul Revere, 1768-70 Image and commentary
   2a. Watson and the Shark 1778 Here or here [Graphic depiction of a real event] OR The Copley Family, 1776-7 Larger image
   3. The Red Cross Knight, 1793 (Lynn Bruce's study notes)
Gilbert Stuart (American, 1755 - 1828)
   1. The Skater (Portrait of William Grant) 1782 Larger image
   2. Joseph Brant, 1786
   3. George Washington (Lansdowne Portrait) Image with historical information

2002-2003 TERM 2 Degas and Manet

Edgar Degas (day-GAH) (French, 1834-1917)
   1. The Dance Class, 1873-75; smaller
   2. The Little Dancer (sculpture)(executed ca. 1880 or 1881; cast in 1922) Different angle
   3. Race Horses, 1885
Edouard Manet (man-AY) (French, 1832-1883)
   4. Concert in the Tuileries, 1860-62 Brief discussion of the painting at Artchive or here OR Luncheon on the Grass (contains nudity; included because it is arguably his most famous painting) More information here.
   5. The Railway Discussion of this painting
   6. Le Bar aux Folies-Bergère, or here 1881-82; Painting briefly discussed at the Artchives.
More for further study here.

2002-2003 TERM 3 The Hudson River School Artists: Cole, Church, Cropsey, & Durand, 19th Century, American Thomas Cole (1801-1848)

Read a 14-page article about Thomas Cole by David Quine, Adventures in Art, Cornerstone Curriculum
(first appeared in Home Schooling Today.) Used with permission. This is a pdf file and requires Acrobat Reader, a free download, to view.
   1 and 2. Voyage of Life, 1842 (An allegorical series of 4 paintings, always exhibited together. Take 2-4 weeks with these, as you think best.)
   3. View From Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm ("The Oxbow"), 1836
Frederick Edwin Church (1826-1900)
   4. Niagara, 1857
   5. Heart of the Andes, 1859
Jasper Francis Cropsey (1823-1900)
   6. Autumn -- On The Hudson River, 1860
Further Interest:
Cole - Expulsion From the Garden of Eden, 1828
We recommend Cole's "Course of Empire" series (5 paintings) for older House of Education students.
David Quine's study of Cole, linked above, includes an in-depth study of this series of paintings on pages 5-14 of the pdf file.
   Church -. Twilight in the Wilderness, 1860
   Church -. Cotapaxi, 1862
   Church - The Icebergs, 1861
   Asher B. Durand - (1796-1886) Kindred Spirits, 1849 alternate view Oil on canvas; 46 X 36 in.The New York Public Library

2003-2004 TERM 1 (Rubens, Velasquez, sometimes spelled Velazquez)

Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish, 1577-1640)
   1. Daniel in the Lion's Den c. 1615
   2. Return of the Peasants from the Fields, c. 1632-34
   3. Rubens, His Wife Helena Fourment, and Their Son Peter Paul, c. 1639
For further interest:
      a. Dance of the Villagers (sometimes titled A Peasant Dance), c. 1636 [Preview for parental discretion: one woman has a slipping neckline that partially reveals her breast (could be easily "edited" if you choose). We include it for its unusual energy and motion; a lively, fun painting.]
      b. St. George and the Dragon, 1606-07 [Preview for parental discretion - a masterful painting of a story familiar to AO scholars, but may be too intense for sensitive children.]
      c. Landscape with Rainbow, early 1630s
Diego Velasquez (Spain, 1599-1660)
There is useful commentary on Velazquez here, which discusses all of the paintings below:
   1. Old Woman Frying Eggs, 1618
   2. The Waterseller of Seville, 1623
   3. Las Meninas (The Maids of Honor), 1656
For further interest:
      a. Joseph's Coat Brought to Jacob, 1650
      b. Juan de Pareja, 1630
I, Juan de Pareja by Elizabeth B. De Trevino -- You may wish to supplement your study of Velazquez with this book, which won a Newbery Medal in 1965.

2003-2004 TERM 2 (Corot, Courbet)

Camille Corot (French, 1796-1875)
   1. The Bridge at Nantes or here (Click on thumbnail painting for an exploded view.), 1827
   2. Chartres Cathedral, 1830 (retouched 1872)
   3. A View Near Volterra or here, 1838
   4. The Letter, approx. 1865,
Gustave Courbet (French, 1819-1877)
   5. The Stonebreakers, here or here 1849
   6. Sleeping Spinner, 1853

2003-2004 TERM 3 Jacques-Louis David (French, 1748-1825) (pronounced ZHOCK lu-WEE dah-VEED)

   1. Belisarius, 1781 Information about the painting
   2. Oath of the Horatii, 1784 Information about the painting
   3. Death of Socrates, 1787 Information about the painting
   4. Portrait of Levoisier and His Wife, 1788 Explanation of the picture
   5. Napoleon Crossing the Alps (or the "St. Bernard"), 1800
   6. The Coronation of Napoleon and Josephine in Notre Dame, 1806 and 1807
Additional Interest (Optional)
      A. Napoleon In His Study, 1812 or larger image here: The National Gallery of Art has an online "NGA Kids" activity to go with this painting.
      B. Students who have read The Iliad will find this painting of interest: Andromache Mourning Hector, 1783
      C. Students who studied Plutarch's Brutus will find this painting of interest: The Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons, 1789 or here
   D. David's most well-known painting is probably too dark for most younger students, but HEO students may opt to study it: The Death of Marat, 1793 or here

2004-2005 TERM 1 Mary Cassatt (American Impressionist, 1844-1926 Composer Dvorak, late Romantic)


   1. Woman in Black at the Opera, 1880
   2. Woman and Child Driving,1881
   3. Children on the Shore, also here
   4. The Child's Bath, 1893
   5. The Boating Party, also here 1893/1894
   6. Young Mother Sewing, 1900

   Additional Interest: Breakfast in Bed, (scroll down to view this painting ) 1894
   And a special treat just for the moms . . . a luscious Cassatt you might never see otherwise because it's privately owned: Mother Berthe Holding Her Baby, 1900

2004-2005 TERM 2 Giotto di Bondone, 1267-1337, Italian, Renaissance (music: Medieval)

The Giotto works for this term are all portions of larger frescos in chapels, making it difficult to provide exact dimensions. Most date from the early 1300's, and are painted on walls of chapels in Italy.
   1. Resurrection of Lazarus
   2. Birth of Jesus
   3. Jesus washes the feet of the apostles
   4. The Allegory of Justice
   5. The Nativity and adoration of the shepherds (Lovely close-up detail)
   6. St. Francis feeding the birds
Additional Interest: Francis Gives His Cloak to a Poor Man and Madonna Enthroned (or here)
We encourage AO parents to show your students large pictures of whole frescos to give a sense of the scope, scale and presentation of these works. An overview of the Scrovegni Chapel at Padua, Italy.
Giotto's fresco contrasting personifications of the Vices and Virtuesoffers much fodder for observation and discussion. These are at Scrovegni Chapel. Be sure to click on the thumbnail images for a larger view.
Closeup of the Virtues and Close up of the Vices
You may also wish to read more about St. Francis during this term. His story in Trial and Triumph is scheduled for AO Year 2 students.
For further information about Giotto, see:
http://cgfa.sunsite.dk/giotto/giotto_bio.htm
http://home.wanadoo.nl/candida_martinelli/knights_of_art_giotto.htm
http://www.artinvest2000.com/giotto_english.htm
http://ww\w.ovationtv.com/artszone/programs/frescoes/cimabueandgiotto.html
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/G/giotto.html
http://www.christusrex.org/www1/francis/

2004-2005 TERM 3 (Winslow Homer American, 1836-1910) (composer Copland, Gershwin American)

   1. Home, Sweet Home,1863, Oil on canvas, 54.6 x 41.9 cm (21 1/2 x 16 1/2 in.) National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
   2. Prisoners from the Front, 1866, Oil on canvas; 24 x 38 in. (61 x 96.5 cm) Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
   3. Snap the Whip, 1872, Oil on canvas, 22 1/4" x 36 1/2" (56.5 x 92.7 cm) The Butler Institute of Art, Youngstown, Ohio
   4. Boys in a Pasture,1874, Oil on canvas, 40.32 x 58.1 cm (15 7/8 x 22 7/8 in.) Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
   5. Breezing Up,1873-1876, Oil on canvas, 61.5 x 97 cm (24 3/16 x 38 3/16 in.) National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
   6. The Gulf Stream, (also here), 1899, Oil on canvas, 28 1/8 x 49 1/8 in. (71.4 x 124.8 cm) Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City

2005-2006 TERM 1 Michelangelo Buonarroti (Italian, 1475-1564) (composer Beethoven classical/Romantic)

This site has a complete history of his life, links to his works, and even a 5 minute video on how IBM scientists did a study of the Florentine Pieta.
Suggested book resources:
Michelangelo by Diane Stanley
Michelangelo and the Renaissance, by David Spence. (Note - one page has something really unsuitable mentioned on it.)
   1. Sistine Chapel Ceiling (some scenes contain nudity) This site includes a sonnet Michelangelo wrote about painting the ceiling.
   2. Creation of Man from the Sistine Chapel
   3. The Libyan Sibyl from the Sistine Chapel
   4. Pieta (Madonna and Child) - sculpture
   5. Doni Tondo (The Holy Family) c.1504-1506. Oil on panel. Diameter 120 cm. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy
   6. David (nudity) - sculpture (front; back; detail of just the head) OR Moses - sculpture

2005-2006 TERM 2 Jan Vermeer (1632-1675) (composer Purcell, Baroque)

Biography and Thumbnails of Vermeer's complete collection of works
   1. The Milkmaid
   2. Woman in Blue Reading a Letter
   3. Woman Holding a Balance
   4. Art of Painting
   5. The Geographer
   6. The Alleghory of Faith

2005-2006 TERM 3 John William Waterhouse (1849-1917) (composer Johann Strauss, Jr.)

   1. A Sick Child brought into the Temple of Aesculapius or here
   2. The Lady of Shalott or here
   3. The Favourites of the Emperor Honorius or here
   4. La Belle Dame Sans Merci or here
   5. Jason and Medea
   6. Penelope and the Suitors or here

2006-2007 TERM 1 Pieter Breugel the Elder (1525-1569; Flemish Northern Renaissance) How to pronounce Bruegel

   1. Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (c.1554-55)
   2. Children's Games (1560) Details and info.
   3. Tower of Babel (1563)
   4. Landscape with the Parable of the Sower (1557) also here.
   5. Hunters in the Snow (1565)
   6. Peasant Wedding (c. 1568)
Special thanks to Jenny (spicejenmom) for her helpful suggestions for this term's art selections.

2006-2007 TERM 2 JMW Turner (1775-1851) English Landscape (composer Schumann, Early Romantic)

Short biography
   1. Rain, Steam and Speed
   2. Fighting Temeraire, with commentary by Ruskin; This work was chosen as the best painting in Britain by popular vote at some radio program.
   3. The Boys Catching Crabs
   4. Rome from the Vatican (painters seen with Rome as backdrop)
   5. Fisherman at Sea
   6. The Fifth Plague of Egypt
Boys might enjoy seeing this: Sunrise with Sea Monsters
Turner was John Ruskin's favorite artist. Here's some of Ruskin's writing about Turner; there are more:

2006-2007 TERM 3 Titian (1485-1576) Italian High Renaissance (composers Wagner and Offenbach, German Romantic)

"Titian was one of the giants of Renaissance art, whose revolutionary handling of surface and colour transformed the language of painting." ( from AbsoluteArts )
Wikipedia Entry and Biography
100 paintings
   1. The Descent of the Holy Ghost. c.1545
   2. The Supper at Emmaus. c.1535
   3. Madonna and Child with St. Catherine and a Rabbit. 1530
   4. Portrait of Clarissa Strozzi. 1542
   5. Portrait of Emperor Charles V at Muhlberg. 1548
   6. The Three Ages of Man c. 1513
Extra interest: Assumption of the Virgin (Assunta). 1516-1518 (details)

2007-2008 TERM 1 Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519) Italian High Renaissance (composers: Russian National)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/L/leonardo.html
A lovely website of DaVinci's art
Notebooks, translated into English
   1. Genevra, which is in the NGA 1474-1476
   2. The Virgin of the Rocks 1483-86
   3. Lady with Ermine 1483-90
   4. The Last Supper 1498 "One of the most complex paintings in the Western tradition in depicting a variety of psychological reactions and internal states all focussed on a single, non-reacting center, the figure of Jesus of Nazareth. In thebewildering variety of reactions immediately following Jesus's announcement of his coming betrayal, Leonardo in visual terms manifests what Pico della Mirandola and others were saying about the variety and unpredictability of human beings." See more here.
   5. Mona Lisa 1503-06 detail and text
   6. Self-portrait c. 1512
Book suggestion: Katie Meets the Mona Lisa, by James Mayhew.
(For Canadians: This picture book also appeared in The Art Issue of Chickadee magazine, a special issue which still shows up regularly at yard sales.)
Video suggestion: "Leonardo: A Dream of Flight," one of The Inventors' Specials by Devine Entertainment.
For special interest: Study of Cat Movements and Positions 1517-18

2007-2008 TERM 2 Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) Dutch Baroque (composer Handel, Baroque)

Self-portrait
   1. The Night Watch, 1642 (also here)
   2. The Raising of the Cross, 1633 (also here)
   3. Shipbuilder Jan Rijcksen and his Wife, 1633
   4. Aristotle Contemplating a Bust of Homer, 1653 (also here)
   5. Supper at Emmaus, 1648
   6. The Prodigal Son, 1660's

2007-2008 TERM 3 Jan Van Eyck (1395-1441) Flemish Northern Renaissance (composer Saint-Saens and Berlioz, Early Romantic)

The Crucifixion and The Last Judgement are two of Van Eyck's most important and well-known works; however, they're gruesome, so alternatives have been suggested along with them.
   1. The Crucifixion, 1425-30 OR Birth of John the Baptist, 1422
   2. The Last Judgement, 1425-30 OR Madonna with Child Reading, 1433
   3. Adoration of the Lamb (From the Ghent Altarpiece, 1425-30)
   4. The Annunciation
   5. Arnolfini Wedding, 1434
   6. Man in a Red Turban, 1433

Possible future additions:
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780-1867) French Neoclassical
Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902) Hudson River School
Camille Pisarro (1830-1903) French Impressionist
Georges Seurat (1859-1891) Neoimpressionism/Pointillism
Adolphe William Bouguereau (1825-1905) French Academic
Fra Angelico, Lippi and Masaccio
   The following were dropped to make single-artist terms; will try to work into blank terms:
   Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543) Northern Renaissance
   John Constable (1776-1837) English landscape
   Jean-Louis-Andre Gericault (1791-1824) French Romantic
   Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863) French Romantic

Wendi's notes on Picture Study With Charlotte Mason

Choose your artist if at all possible by first looking at the artists who worked during the time period you are studying for history. Once you have a list of artists to choose from, apply these principles to the artworks and narrow your selection to abut six works by a single artist.

In selecting our pictures, we should keep these things in mind (these are either quotes from, or adapted from, Charlotte Mason's works):

The pictures should have a refining, elevating influence.

They should express great ideas, and this is more important than the technique.

The great ideas our art prints express might include "the great human relationships, relationships of love and service, of authority and obedience, of reverence and pity and neighbourly kindness; relationships to kin and friend and neighbour, to 'cause' and country and kind, to the past and the present."

Our art prints ought to put "our children in touch with the great thoughts by which the world has been educated in the past, and to keep . . . them in the right attitude towards the great ideas of the present"--And bring us into the "world of beauty created for us by those whose Beauty Sense enables them not only to see and take joy in all the Beauty there is, but whose souls become so filled with the Beauty they gather through eye and ear that they produce for us new forms of Beauty."

Do our choices expose the children to those works of art which seek to "interpret to us some of the meanings of life?" " . . . FraAngelico will tell us of the beauty of holiness, that Giotto will confide his interpretation of the meaning of life, that Millet will tell us of the simplicity and dignity that belong to labour on the soil, that Rembrandt will show us the sweetness of humanity in many a commonplace countenance.

The artist--"Reaching, that heaven might so replenish him, Above and through his art,"--has indispensable lessons to give us . . . the outward and visible signi s of less moment than the inward and spiritual grace."--Technique, no matter how brilliant, is not a substitute for expression of beauty, or one of those 'meanings of life' interpretations.

Let us choose pictures using this as a guideline--"Nothing can be a work of art which is not useful, that is to say, which does not minister to the body when well under the command of the mind, or which does not amuse, soothe, or elevate the mind in a healthy state."--CM quoting William Morris

The works of art we choose should represent 'master ideas,' which the painter 'works out, not in a single piece, but here a little and there a little, in a series of studies.' The artist is "a teacher, who is to have a refining, elevating effect upon our coarser nature"

Our prints can also be chosen to help the children develop a love for the commonplace beauty of every day things--"For it is true as Browning told us,--For, don't you mark, we're made so that we love First when we see them painted, things we have passed Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see." . . . we learn to see things when we see them painted."

Our art prints should help our children develop an affinity for, an attraction to, the beautiful, the lovely, the pure, the refining--because "education is concerned to teach him what pictures to delight in."

To go to the source--and you should go to the source--please see Charlotte Mason's own books, in particular:
Vol 1 pg 131
Vol 2 pg 262
Vol 3 pg 81, 160
Vol 4 pg 41, 103
Vol 5 pg 1, 233-235, 314-315
Vol 6 pg 59, 213-214

Thank You!

The Advisory wishes to express our gratitude to artist/musician Tom Root and his wife, artist Peggy Root, and to Lee Anne Penny for their invaluable contributions to the compilation of the Artist Schedule. We also wish to thank Lee Anne Penny for her continued support in providing lessons for many of the Art terms, and to Angela Zimmerman for her efforts in making quality prints available.

Probably all agree that exhibitions of ostentatious vulgarity are better avoided, and should not be encouraged, and all will be unanimous in feeling that children should as little as possible be brought into contact with pictures wherein the desire of the eyes and the pride of life are flaunted in their native brutality. And so it is to be regretted that the contemplation of works devoted to the celebration of these things is usually unavoidable for those who enter exhibitions of modern pictures. For a number of the ablest portrait painters become fashionable, and their works are certain to be prominently placed in any representative exhibition, so that there is no avoiding them. All the seduction of admirable painter-craft is employed to capture our attention for the expensive jewels and costly millinery of the last new millionaire's wife and family, for the sporting magnate himself with his top boots or his guns, his hounds, his hunters, and all that is his. It is all thrust upon us life-size, trampling over our humbler aspirations, to leave us breathless with amazement at its magnitude, and disheartened by its dulness. There is no escaping these things now; they are upon us, even as his motor car is, with a whirlwind of dust, discomfort, and distraction. There is not much we can do, save beware of these things. We can turn away our eyes from viewing vanity. We must recognize that the powers of poetry are here in bondage--hewers of wood and drawers of water for the Philistines, and so pass by. But we must point out the deplorable fact to the children so that they may identify it for what it is when they behold a display of ostentatious vulgarity.

There is prettiness, too, to be avoided. We have to be on our guard against the insidious rose-watery weakening of emotion, the sugaring down of knowledge to meet the taste of such as prefer to be fed with a spoon, and dare not see without blinkers. Whatever is pretty is pretty bad. Whatever life may be, it is not pretty. Whatever breathes has some force, some conviction; all that is real has some title to respect, some claim for sympathy. Manliness, temperance, sincerity, wear no blinkers. What they see they needs must see clearly, and there is not time for trifling. Distrust the pretty pictures, and do what you can to prevent your children from forming a taste for them.

It is often said to us, "We do not really require the works of artists; we like them, and admire them, but we can quite well do without them; they are superfluous things." In the phrase often heard the meaning is concisely stated thus: Art is a luxury. The proposition commends itself as a true one to most people, who really do feel that they could quite well do without any pictures. They are conscious of desiring to have such things as give them pleasure, and of their need to be pleased, or rather amused. For in so far as good pictures are not found to answer these ends, they are liable to be relegated to the category of superfluities. Not being pretty, they do not please. If they are not gay, which they are seldom, or funny, which they never can be, they are not found entertaining or amusing. The idea is based on a conception widely prevailing, wherein the function of art is considered to be that of a public entertainer or purveyor of diversions. We are apt to think that our life is dull, and are ready to welcome brave shows to take us out of ourselves. The aspiration is natural, for, to many, life is dull. But there are agencies better adapted to enliven it than are the fine arts, and it is good for us to be taken out of ourselves, provided the chosen vehicle does not rush with us violently down a steep place. Various arts may minister to the amusement of the vacuous, but not fine arts. These can indeed take us out of ourselves, but only on condition that we permit them to take us beyond ourselves, and higher. This they have always done, and can always do. Demand therefore from fine art no more, nor less, than you have been accustomed to demand from fine literature, from poetry--the widening and refining of your experience. Life is not amusing, any more than it is pretty, and we know how true it is that our singers learn in sorrow what they teach in song.

From the Parents' Review article "On Exhibitions; read the full article here