Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Art appreciation and nudity

Either next week or the following week, we will start taking a close look at art masterpieces. Over a period of 2 or 3 months, we will focus on one artist and look at his or her works. As anyone who has visited an art museum knows, nudity comes along with the territory of art appreciation sometimes.
Over the years, I have not covered the nudity in order for my girls to see the whole picture. I've heard of some moms putting a post-it note over the parts they didn't want their kids to see and I feel that takes away from the art and puts too much emphasis on the nudity. I do try to find pictures that don't contain nudity, but sometimes (as in Michelangelo's "David") it's unavoidable. It's a piece of art that identifies very clearly with the artist and something would be lost if it were covered or not even looked at.
After we have studied a piece of art, my girls will often cut out a pair of shorts (or other piece of clothing) from construction paper and cover the parts they don't want to see. The following is a refrigerator magnet I purchased when we studied Michelangelo.



Forunately for us, we live in the 21st century and have the internet. Ambleside Online is a wonderful resource which provides a schedule and pictures for study. Some have a little nudity, but AO offers a detail of such pictures that doesn't have nudity and can be used as an alternate.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I completely agree with you on this. It really does take away from the piece. God created the human body and its Beautiful. There is no to hide a sculpture.

Nikki

Anonymous said...

I completely agree with you on this. It really does take away from the piece. God created the human body and its Beautiful. There is no to hide a sculpture.

Nikki