Thursday, June 28, 2018

The Master and His Apprentices (An Art History Curriculum Review)




Having an interest in Art myself, and Eldest currently being an Art Education major in college, I would have loved to have had a resource like The Master and His Apprentices: Art History from a Christian Perspective for her to have used before she entered college. Because she had never taken formal art classes, when her classes in Visual Literacy and Methods and Theories of Art History rolled around having the solid background offered by The Master and His Apprentices would have been handy. Side note: she instantly recognized the piece used for the cover, as it had been included in a lecture about Beauty and Quality, and was used as an example of the Sublime, while it was a work with which I was not acquainted.

Because I personally have historically appreciated more art from the 1700's and beyond, I found The Master and His Apprentices to be very informative, as the bulk of the material covers Art from the Ancients through the Baroque Era, around the 17th Century, with only one chapter addressing art from the 1600's and beyond. While I was already familiar with some artists, I really enjoyed learning more through Gina Ferguson's text. It is well written, in a conversational style that fairly easily captures the reader's interest. It is NOT dry or dull and is intended for a high school student to be able to complete in a more or less self-directed manner, although it is also appropriate for classroom instruction. 



We reviewed the Digital version of the textbook and teacher guide, which have been formatted to be conveniently and economically available for printing by the home user (Following the copyright license guidelines printed in the front of the book), but the text is generally intended to be viewed on a screen, which can be really nice if you want to zoom in for more detail on the work being discussed. From a practical point of view, while the print is a little small when viewed on a kindle fire (for my older eyes~ my daughter had no problems with it at all), it was easier than zooming and scrolling side to side or up and down on my 13-inch computer screen. 

The Master and His Apprentices is definitely written from a Christian World View, and the Introduction and first chapter make that eminently obvious. After all, who is clearly the Master Artist, but God, Himself? He created the originals of all of the things that artists (His apprentices) attempt to copy in their endeavors ~ light, water, color, clouds, vapor, trees, mountains, flowers... you get the point. Gina uses observations from science, history, archaeology, Scripture, and even math to highlight the greatest works of art and draw our attention to them before she delves into the works of the "apprentices."


My daughter appreciated the organization of the text, which is set up in chronological order, with the artists being highlighted individually within their period. She also loved the fact that there were timelines laying out the placement of major works of art with concurrent major Biblical and World events. 

The main periods covered: 

  • Creation
  • Ancient Cultures
    • Ancient Near East
    • Egyptian
    • Aegean
  • Classical Antiquity
    • Early Greek
    • Etruscan
    • Roman
  • Middle Ages
    • Early Christian and Byzantine
    • Medieval and Islamic
    • Romanesque
    • Gothic
  • Renaissance
    • Proto-Renaissance
    • Early Italian Renaissance
    • High Italian Renaissance
    • Northern Renaissance
  • Baroque Era and Beyond
    • Baroque
    • Rococo to Today
    • Global Highlights
The Appendix is also rich in information including:
  • Six essays relating to Art, Christianity, and Biblical history
  • A complete timeline of all the works mentioned in the book, along with major Biblical/World events
  • A page of terms used to describe art
  • Pieces By Location, which is a nifty little "art travel guide" for the pieces mentioned in the book~ if you are traveling and want to see a piece you read about in person, this list will help you accomplish that! 
If using this for a high school curriculum(Art History/Art Appreciation), the Teacher Guide offers a very complete syllabus/time schedule, discussion questions for each chapter, and quarterly quizzes (that are somewhat cumulative in nature~ the first quiz has about 34 questions, the fourth and final quiz has over 60 questions).

Your student will learn to recognize famous works, the style, medium, and technique used along with information about the artists (when known). With the visuals of the artwork, there is an added hook to help them remember their Biblical and World History events. 


In reading through some chapters fully, and skimming through others again, I was very

pleased with the style of writing, the information imparted, and the overall layout of the book. This is a solid art history text that avoids graphics that many parents may find objectionable while still covering a majority of the major works, how they fit with history and theology.  The screenshot snippet that you can see on the right is a good illustration of some of the history and theology included that takes place during the discussion of particular works of art. 
I greatly appreciate also that it doesn't include any secular humanist ideologies or "subjective expository" so frequently found in secular art history resources. 

If you would like to get a feel for the content and set-up of the pages in the book, Gina has provided a number of sample pages that are much better quality than anything I could provide here, so please do go check them out! 


Not So Nutty Nitty Gritty 
You can visit The Master and His Apprentices on Facebook and Pinterest

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Blessings~
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