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.

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