Degas

Degas, Impressionism and the Paris Millinery Trade

The St. Louis Art Museum has a special exhibit which will soon be coming to a close: “Degas, Impressionism and the Paris Millinery Trade.” I hadn’t realized that it had so little time left, and we almost missed our chance to go. We got tickets to see it last week, for the “Free Friday” event, and it was quite impressive!

As you might expect, there are works by Degas on display. There are also by paintings by some of his friends and contemporaries, as well: Renoir, Cassatt, and Manet were included.

While the bulk of the exhibit focused on women’s hats, as you might expect, there was also an area dedicated to the different styles of men’s headwear.

There were quite a few actual hats on display, as well. I was impressed by how well they’ve held up over the years!

There was a small area of hat-making materials that you could touch…the children really enjoyed that! The feathers were especially popular!

We even saw a doll who had a selection of tiny hats!

This was a fantastic exhibit. I think Bunny and I could have spent all day admiring the paintings and the hats (although I think Turkey would have been happy had we hurried along a bit). There were even children’s books scattered throughout, and Chickadee enjoyed hearing me read an old favorite and a new story to her while we there. The exhibit will be in town through May 7, and I highly recommend taking a tour!

2016-17 School Year–Week Twenty-Nine

These last few weeks of the school year are so crazy!

Thankfully, math has been easy. Turkey and Bunny have been working with the Pythagorean Theorem, which is not totally new to them, so that was a simple set of lessons. Ladybug has continued to work with metric conversions, which she mostly has the hang of, so that hasn’t been problematic, either.

Ladybug finished her study of Greek Myths in literature. She can spend the last few weeks of the school year listening to me read for fun! Turkey and Bunny have finished another act in As You Like It…the one with possibly the most quotable line: “All the world’s a stage…”

Our history lessons have focused primarily around the former USSR, particularly their relations with the Middle East. We have also learned about terrorism, which I guess isn’t really new to anyone these days, but we focused on organizations like the PLO and the IRA in our studies.

Turkey and Bunny have continued learning about the forces of nature in science. They were very excited that their studies took them to outer space this week, as we learned about the solar system. We also discussed the difference between planets and dwarf planets, and why Pluto is no longer classified as a planet. Ladybug has been learning more about jellyfish, as well as sea anemones in her science lessons.

Chickadee has continued to enjoy listening to me read Beezus and Ramona. We also took some time today to visit the St. Louis Art Museum. We finally got to tour the “Degas, Impressionism and the Paris Millinery Trade” exhibit, which is wrapping up its time in St. Louis. While we were there, I had the opportunity to read Chickadee one of her favorite books, Caps for Sale, as well as a new story to us, Madeline and the Bad Hat. I love that they scatter children’s books related to the exhibit throughout! We were also there for the very first day of “The Hats of Stephen Jones” exhibit, which is like a scavenger hunt through the museum…very fun!

This was a very busy week, and we have about four more of those to go before we finish the school year! I hope I can continue to find fun things to mix in with our work!

Capping off a Week of Fine Arts

On Saturday, we went to the St. Louis Art Museum (or S.L.A.M., if you will) for the first time ever to check out the reproduction of Degas’ Little Dancer of Fourteen Years that was the basis for the story Degas and the Little Dancer that we read in school last week.

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I thought this was a particularly interesting outing because of Turkey’s and Bunny’s reactions to seeing the sculpture in person. They were both surprised at how small it was. I guess they were expecting it to be life-sized, instead of Ladybug-sized. Frankly, I was expecting it to be larger as well, although I don’t know why. I guess that’s just the difference between reading about art and actually seeing it!

While we were there, we also got to look around the Impressionist gallery, which included, as a bonus for us, a painting by Degas. After talking about Impressionism last week, as well as some of the artists, it was nice to compare a few of the paintings, and see what makes them different from the paintings in the other galleries nearby.

Fine Arts Week

I had originally planned this week to be ballet-themed. I wasn’t going to make Turkey and Bunny dance, but I thought it would be good for them to learn about the history of dance, hear the stories behind some of the most famous ballets, listen to some of the music, etc. I found it to be especially timely approaching Christmas–we could spend at least a full day on just the Nutcracker, maybe even stretch it into a day and a half.

As I was planning, however, it quickly morphed into more of a study of fine arts than just ballet. Yes, that was still the primary focus, but we also be studied art and artists (specifically Degas, who did many paintings of ballerinas), music and composers (especially Tchaikovsy, without whom the modern shape of ballet would be very different!), and even a little cooking (not really a “fine” art I suppose, but how can you learn about ballet without taking the opportunity to make a Pavlova?).

I found lots of great resources, so I thought I’d share, in case you’re looking for some good reading, watching, or listening related to fine arts!

Full of information on the history of ballet, basic steps, stories of the ballet, everything. The accompanying CD has excerpts of some of the more memorable parts of many ballets, along with explanations of the music, and hints for what to listen for (the sound of cats meowing in The Sleeping Beauty, for example).

This book had wonderful summaries of some of the most famous ballet stories–we read both The Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake, and, if we hadn’t already had a storybook of it, would have read the Nutcracker, too. Like A Child’s Introduction to Ballet, it also comes with a CD.

This is part of a great series called “Getting to Know the World’s Greatest Artists.” While these books are very factual, and full of pictures of paintings, they also have humorous illustrations, and are written in a very conversational style. There seems to be a book for every major artist, too!

I found this book, especially the ending, to be quite moving. In fact, the first time I read through it, I teared up a little.

Similar to the above Degas book, this is part of the companion “Getting to Know the World’s Greatest Composers” series. I unintentionally chose only ballets by Tchaikovsky to read and listen to, so I thought we should learn about the composer himself. Turkey and Bunny especially liked learning about Tchaikovsky’s fear that his head would fall off while conducting in front of an audience, thereby forcing him to hold onto his beard the entire time. We’re looking forward to reading the Bach installment next year!

My favorite version of the Nutcracker ballet, ever. Helgi Tomasson did an awesome job of choreographing the ballet in a fresh new way, while holding true to the original story. There are also educator materials available on the San Francisco Ballet Company’s website, which are great resources for teaching about this ballet.