Come Look With Me is a terrific book, inviting children (and their parents/teachers) to explore art together. This particular book, which I believe is first in the series, focuses on paintings that feature children. The sweet girl and I have enjoyed looking at a number of paintings in very different styles. Each painting is reproduced in beautiful color on one side of a two-page spread; the accompanying page includes a paragraph or two on the artist's life and a series of questions you can ask about the picture. Excellent discussion starters.
I learned a thing or two myself today, as we explored the final two paintings, both by Pablo Picasso. I confess I've never been much of a fan of Picasso. Today we looked at his painting "Le Gourmet" (from his blue period) and "Maya and Her Doll," an illustration of cubism. Now I am not in any way, shape or form a fan of cubism, and I was wondering how the odd painting would go down with the sweet girl, but she was totally intrigued by the geometric shapes used to make up the painting. She was so game to look at it and so enthusiastic that I found myself looking at it in new ways too, and actually learning quite a bit from Blizzard's helpful notes about the way in which the girl's face was shown as though we were viewing it in two ways: face on, and in profile, all at the same time. (We had an interesting discussion about profiles...) The sweet girl also seemed intrigued by the notion that how one felt could affect the way you painted, or the colors you chose. The text notes mentioned that when Picasso painted "Le Gourmet" (with the predominant blue) that he was very young, only 19, and feeling very sad. S. wanted to know what he was sad about.
Since we were finishing the book today, and it's due back at the library tomorrow, I asked the sweet girl to choose her favorite painting from the whole book. Given her interest in Picasso today, and the fact that we'd just discussed him, I wondered if she might choose one of those. But she didn't. She picked this:
It's called "The Nut Gatherers." Painted in 1882 by the French artist William-Adolphe Bouguereau. She loved that there were two girls (when we looked at it a few weeks ago, she told me she thought they were sisters...she has very much been wanting one of those!) and that one had dark hair and one light. She smiled brightly when I pointed out that you could see one girl's face almost full on, and the other only in profile.
Highly recommend this art resource for picture study. Our library has some of the other books in the series, and I hope we get a chance to use them all between this year and next.
2 comments:
Very cool picture! That sounds like a great book, and it's neat how you can see something in a whole new light with some help from a fresh pair of eyes. I never was much of a Picasso fan either, but his work is definitely interesting!
It was a wonderful book. I loved how I learned right along with S. as we looked through it together!
And I think this was my favorite picture too, funnily enough. Hmm. You would think we're related! S. wanted me to choose another one as my favorite though, so I picked a Renoir painting of two girls at a piano. I do enjoy Renoir.
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