Art History in Your Homeschool, Did You Forget too? {Review}
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I love art. We often pour over my huge volume titled World Famous Paintings, but that isn’t really enough is it? I have neglected Art History as a full subject because there was not a volume that I thought covered the material with enought depth to engage students for the length of a complete course until the review of The Master and His Apprentices came across my desk.
The text book; The Master and His Apprentices: Art History from a Christian Perspective, is the thoroughly researched and well grounded brainchild of a formerly homeschooled, privately trained artist, turned researcher in art history. It would be a disservice if you missed the about the author page where you can read Gina’s incredible story.
Truly this is the passion project of her life‘s work and you can tell that she has strived to meet the need in homeschool community with all of the wisdom integrity and passion that God has given her.
Art History Cannot be Uncoupled from God
I can sympathize with Gina‘s difficulty in finding art history texts aligned with a Christian world view. To not oppose or to closely agree with a more conservative worldview narrative is all but impossible o find in secular publishing. So many books I have read make an effort to excuse or vilify the role of Christianity and it’s deny its direct correlation in the emergence of artists musicians and gifted inventors throughout history.
This is a Christian work for the glory of God. Though, above all, Gina strives to incorporate veracity and truth, she also intentionally weaves the story that God originally wrote from the creation of time, using art and history punctuate events to the early 1600’s.
For my review I was able to use the digital format which is a more cost-effective choice for a homeschool family, but no less fascinating with 600 images of historical locations, artifacts, and master works.
I was able to review this as an adult reader and would consider the hardcover book a worthy investment. Especially, if I had several children who were interested in art history. With the incorporation of the digital teaching guide and the fact that for $2 you can purchase printing rights for any additional student, this is priced just right for a full year credit course. In the end you would have a book that is on par with the Time LIfe collections we used to keep on my coffee table.
It is unfortunate but in the busyness of trying to get our core subjects and often times art history is a subject that gets pushed aside and forgotten. We grow familiar with a handful of works we’ve seen before. The master and his apprentices brings the history of each one of those artists and time periods into existence in a three-dimensional world that brings a deeper scope of historical times.
I’m a huge fan of history with the face and I feel like there is no better way to make a deeper connection and help our kids to value the importance of learning history like tangible connections to things they can relate to in the world today. The fortunate thing is many of these works from near the time of Christ, are in existence today and stand as a testimony to how relatively near that moment in history actually was. Just look at the map
To be used as a homeschool course, review questions and chapter tests covering material are provided in the teaching guide giving you a way to cover the material systematically. You can also easily compile the record keeping your state requires or that you prefer to use to create grades as you choose.
