Milo and Silas have been working together on art prints, Charlotte-Mason-style, for several months now. Yesterday I took the two of them to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts for a brief visit, and a chance to see some "real" artworks up close.
I took them straight to the "Art of the American West" collection, because I thought they'd find it exciting.
Milo picked Edgar Payne's "Canyon Portal" as his favorite piece in the room; here's Silas examining it.
Meanwhile, Milo sat on the floor with a sketchbook to produce his own version. Here it is:
See the two little men on horseback at the bottom?
Silas chose a Bierstadt as his favorite painting, but while we waited for Milo to finish his sketch copy of the Payne, Si was drawn to this bronze by Harry Jackson, "Stampede:"
He talked about it at length, pointing out the three cowboys among the rushing mass of cattle, and was especially interested in two details: one cowboy who'd fallen off his horse, dragged by his ankle in the stirrup, and one steer's missing horn-tip. I suggested that perhaps it was the artist's intent to show that some of the cattle were hurt in the stampede, their horns broken off, but Silas was sure that some mishap had occurred to the artwork. "It is really old," he told me.
We moved on to the next room of American Art, where the boys studied two beautifully crafted flintlock rifles. "Why is a gun in an art museum?" I asked them. "Can a gun be art?" and got some interesting answers, mostly revolving around the idea "Because they're old."
The room after that was a bit of a mixed bag, with furniture, textiles, still lifes, and things. I thought the boys would go for the ENORMOUS still life on one wall, or the striking painting of a tornado over St. Paul on the other — but no; Silas grabbed the sketchbook and crayons, and made a beeline for a jewel-like little still life on the opposite wall, next to a marble bust.
It turned out to be a Peale — Raphaelle Peale's "Still Life with Fruit, Cakes, and Wine." Silas has an eye for the well-regarded, I think.
I don't have a picture of Silas's sketch, but it was charming — sort of a linear left-to-right catalog of all the items in the still life. A line across the bottom made the surface the elements rested on, and from left to right he drew a cup of wine, an apple, a leafy twig, a medium orange, another leafy twig, two "cupcakes," and a stick-straight vine with five grapes like beads on a string.
Meanwhile, Milo was entranced by a giant silver Tiffany urn.
I let the boys choose the last room. They led me downstairs and decided on the Chinese pottery. Each picked some items to draw, and then I had them both draw the same item to finish up: a little Sung Dynasty dish that had attracted Silas. "It's so little, I can make it little like it is," he said happily. Milo shrugged –'s'OK – and dutifully they passed the red-orange and green crayons back and forth until they had finished.
On the way home they were immersed in a book of picture puzzles Milo keeps in the car ("can you find the twelve differences between the two photos?") and wouldn't talk to me. But they were happy to be singled out together for a "special" lesson today, while all their siblings stayed at our house and did "the usual" lessons with Hannah. And they both agreed that it is more interesting to see the "real thing" than to study a print of a painting.
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