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Charlotte Mason Picture Study Aid Whistler

A Word on Charlotte Mason Picture Study

The intention of this picture study aids is to equip the home educator with some basic facts and
understanding of various artists and a sampling of their works. It is not meant to be an exhaustive

analysis or study of each piece.

About picture study, Ms. Mason recommended keeping it as simple as possible, especially in the
younger years, and put extra emphasis on the images by themselves.

“There is no talk about schools of painting, little about style; consideration of these matters
comes in later life, the first and most important thing is to know the pictures themselves. As

in a worthy book we leave the author to tell his own tale, so do we trust a picture to tell its

tale through the medium the artist gave it. In the region of art as else-where we shut out the

middleman.” (vol 6 pg 216)

“Definite teaching is out of the question; suitable ideas are easily given, and a thoughtful love

of Art inspired by simple natural talk over the picture at which the child is looking.” (PR

Article “Picture Talks”)

“…we begin now to understand that art is not to be approached by such an acadamised road.

It is of the spirit, and in ways of the spirit must we make our attempt. We recognise that the
power of appreciating art and of producing to some extent an interpretation of what one

sees is as universal as intelligence, imagination, nay, speech, the power of producing words.

But there must be knowledge and, in the first place, not the technical knowledge of how to
produce, but some reverent knowledge of what has been produced; that is, children should

learn pictures, line by line, group by group, by reading, not books, but pictures themselves.

A friendly picture-dealer supplies us with half a dozen beautiful little reproductions of the

work of some single artist, term by term. After a short story of the artist’s life and a few

sympathetic words about his trees or his skies, his river-paths or his figures, the little

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