Appreciating Art While Feeding the World

DS and I got caught up in my own post yesterday. We have been enjoying the art section of Free Rice. We started on the vocabulary, but then moved our way over. Vocab can only hold his attention for so long, but pictures, paintings, or anything visual can hold his attention forever. This section was kind of neat because it had classic paintings and you were supposed to identify the artist from the four listed. DS caught on right away. He was not familiar at all with the artists, but once he realized that you could identify the artist by looking at their style, choice of subject, and color pallet, he was hooked. This was right up his alley. He is the dear boy who while still in diapers pulled all my cans out and reorganized them by height and volume for fun. When he was younger, he would not eat his m&m’s until they were in order and matchboxes weren’t for driving, they were tools to classify and organize.

Of course, in the beginning it was easiest for him to identify Vincent Van Gogh

with his deep strokes and repetitive subject matter, but then we moved on to Monet, Michelangelo, and Rembrandt. He particularly liked Franz Marc,

a Picasso style but with wildlife. He also asked for a Van Gogh print for his room. (He is really becoming my kind of man – a Kenny G. listening Van Gogh fan who likes long walks in the woods – boy will he be able to write a personal ad one day). He also quickly caught on that we could identify Georges Seurat by his use of dots and Pieter Bruegel the Elder by his use of detail.

We also cheated a little or you may call it using your resources wisely when we found out that some of the pictures were signed in the corner. Albrecht Durer’s signature was the most interesting (look in the plaque just below the horse's lifted hoof - there is a "D" inside a rough "A")

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I guess it is time to head back to the Wadsworth Anthenum or maybe a trip on the T into Boston.