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Charlotte Mason Picture Study Aid Peter Paul Rubens

LESSON.

Step 1. Introduce the subject by talking with the children about their original illustrations. Tell them

how our great artists have drawn ideas and inspiration from the work of other artists; have studied
their pictures, copied them, and tried to get at the spirit of them.

Tell them that to-day we are going to study some of the pictures of the great French artist, Millet,

some of whose works Mr. Yates has drawn for us on the walls of our Millet Room, considering them to
be models of true art.

Step 2.-Tell the children a little about the life of Millet (giving them one or two pictures to look at
meanwhile); give only a brief sketch, so that they will feel that he is not a stranger to them. Just talk

to them a little about his early childhood, how he worked in the fields; how he had two great books––

the Book of Nature and the Bible, from which he drew much inspiration; how later on he went to

Paris and studied the pictures of great artists, Michael Angelo among them.

Step 3. Show the pictures to the girls, let them look well at them, and then draw from them their ideas

as to the beauty and simplicity of the composition; call attention to the breadth of tone, and the

dignity of the lines. Help them, sketching when necessary. to reduce a picture to its most simple form;
half-closing their eyes to shut out detail, help them to get an idea of the masses of tone, etc.

Step 4. Let the children reproduce a detail of one of the pictures, working in water-colour with
monochrome and making their washes simple and flat, reducing the tones to two or three.

Step 5. Suggest to them to study the works of other artists in a similar way, and show them how the
books of R. Caldecott will help them in making their figures look as if they were moving.

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