Pretty much zip, actually. Ted’s taken all kinds of art history and whatnot, but moi… none. Which makes art a scary thing to have to share with my children. Baking, yes. Math, yes. Geography, yes. Art – nope! (also history – shudder)
So when I found this book about Chagall in Value Village yesterday, I picked it up with curiosity:
99 cents! What a bargain!
This book is part of a series published in the 60s, 70s and 80s (several editions) of books on art for children by an artist named Ernest Raboff.
The book features full-colour reproductions of several Chagall paintings, along with extremely appealing hand-written text by Raboff on the facing page. Interspersed by snippets of sketches, the text explains Chagall’s use of colour, texture, symbolism, etc., in a way that’s easily understood by a five-t0-twelve-year-old, and consequently, even me.
Well, needless to say, me being me, I was so excited by this book that I had to go and buy six more, online: Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Renoir, Michelangelo, Da Vinci and Picasso. Not exactly $1 apiece, but not more than I would expect to pay for kids’ books. (just over $30 for all 6, which, with the $1 Value Village book added in, will make around $35 for a set of 7, or $5 apiece)
Other books in the series include Klee, Gauguin (probably for the best with all those bikini women), Raphael, Remington, Dürer, Rousseau, Toulouse-Lautrec, and somebody called Diego Rodriguez De Silva Y Velasquez. I wish there was one for Degas; though I know next to nothing about art, he is my favourite. One simply must have a favourite, even in a field where one is toally ignorant.
It seems like these books are totally out of print, though Amazon claims to have a few new copies. Pity. If you can find them online, I highly recommend them for homeschoolers or any-schoolers who want a gentle introduction to Europe’s great art history. Oooh, there’s that word again: history. Shudder.
My history phobia…. another nut to crack, for another day.
