An Eye for Art: Focusing on Great Artists and Their Work

An Eye for Art: Focusing on Great Artists and Their Work by the National Gallery of Art. Chicago Review Press, 2014, 176 pages.eye-for-art

Reading Level: Middle grade, ages 10-12
Maturity Level: 3 (8 and up)

This book is a collection of “Inside Scoop” newsletters, a family quarterly published by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Each “Scoop” included a featured artist and activities related to his or her work. It was a good idea to put all these—revised and expanded—into a single volume, making a treasury for the homeschool art curriculum or the self-directed young artist.

Included here are artists everyone has heard about, plus others lesser-known but worth knowing. They are grouped by themes (nature, portraits, stories, everyday, etc.) with information on each artist’s life and times and significance, plus a few representative works and one or two suggested activities. The activities include collage, color experimentation, composition, or just taking a walk and observing. If your kids are not especially inclined toward producing art, they can still learn quite a bit about appreciating it. For parents concerned about nudity in art books, the only instance I saw was John Singleton Copley’s Watson and the Shark, where the unfortunate Watson, adrift in the sea, isn’t wearing any clothes. To be fair, neither is the shark.

  • Worldview/moral value: N/A
  • Artistic value: 4

Cautions: one instance of nudity; otherwise none.
Recommended use: art enrichment, reference, individual learning

Categories: NON-FICTION, CURRICULUM TIE-IN, ART, art how-to, art history, art appreciation

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Janie Cheaney

Janie is the VERY senior staff writer for Redeemed Reader, as well as a long-time contributor to WORLD Magazine and an author of nine books for children. The rest of the time she's long-distance smooching on her four grandchildren (not an easy task). She lives with her equally senior husband of almost-fifty years in the Ozarks of Missouri.

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