Art : Giotto and a Review of a Living Book

Our second artist study was on Giotto (1267 - 1337 AD), an artist in the Gothic period. He was a student of Cimabue.

We came across a picture book, A Boy Named Giotto, that describes the childhood of Giotto and how he met his teacher Cimabue. This picture book has illustrations done in the style of that period. The dark solemn colours and generous use of gold is apparent as we thumbed through the book. My boys could definitely relate to the story: a boy scratching on boulders to create pictures when he was supposed to be tending his sheep. It tells of how his father belittled Giotto's natural talent as an artist. His gift was not recognized until somebody great and respected, Cimabue, discovered this little boy by chance. An inspiring read. My boys loved it.

As a respond to this story, we tried our hands on some scratching fun. We pretended to be Giotto, shepherding and drawing on a rock what he observed around him... Here's are our scratch art pieces - oil pastels on paper. (Noticed there are 3 pieces here... I couldn't resist drawing as well!)


This is a timeline page one of my boys wrote on this Artist after reading the book and listening to the short write-up in our Artistic Pursuits book :


In addition to reading about Giotto, we followed what Charlotte Mason prescribed for Artist Study, by studying 6 of Giotto's paintings over 6 weeks. They are:
1. Adoration of the Magi
2. Marriage at Cana
3. The Kiss of Judas
4. Deposition of Christ
5. Preaching Before Pope Honorio III
6. Modonna and Child Enthroned with Saints

The boys are now familiar with this great artist's frescoes and were thrilled to see and recognized his paintings when we watched a YouTube video-clip on the frescoes in Capella Degli Scrovegni (Padua, Italy) where most of Giotto's frescoes are.

Here is a picture of my boys getting their hands dirty (again) with making paint from pounding coloured chalk, just like how Giotto would have done to make paint from pigments. We even added egg white in it. It is called egg tempera.



Visit Rumphius Webpage Art to learn more about how we approach Art in our homeschool.