Art Games
Wenda O'Reilly, Ph.D.
Reviewed by Martha Robinson
Purchase details: The Impressionist Art Game and The Renaissance Art Game. Published by Birdcage Books. $25 retail price each. Available from Birdcage Books or Amazon.
The Impressionist Art Game and The Renaissance Art Game from Birdcage Books combine beauty with learning to make art appreciation studies fun. Each set, packaged in an attractive and sturdy box, contains a deck of cards with works of great artists and an 80-page paperback book full of history and background on the art, artists, and the time in which they lived.
The cards, miniature copies of great works, allow children and adults to play "Go Fish" or "Concentration." Each of the slick card stock cards has the name and the number assigned in the game to the artist, a work, the name of the work, and the names of all of the artists other works included in the set. Some of the pictures were partially cut away in order to fit on the card.
The books begin with a brief history of the era, a time line, and a short biography of each artist. The stature of artists, the funding of the arts, the general direction of art at the time, and some artistic techniques are also discussed. Printed on slick heavy paper, the texts have larger pictures of the art than those on the cards and include detailed descriptions, additional reproductions, and magnified highlights from selected prints. The historical information is arranged in newspaper style columns with headlines that allow one to skip around to the tidbits of interest. Because the book and card deck fit snugly into the box, a red ribbon is used to lift them out.
Features of each set are highlighted below:
The Impressionist Art Game contains 32 playing cards by eight artists: Monet, Renoir, Degas, Pissarro, Manet, Caillebotte, Cassatt, and Morisot. One nude, "Woman Bathing in a Shallow Tub" by Degas, is included in the set.
The Renaissance Art Game contains 30 playing cards by five artists: Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Botticelli, and Fra Angelico. While much of the art has a Christian theme, other works portray events from Greek mythology. Many partial and a couple of complete nudes, such as Michelangelos "David" sculpture and "Adam" fresco from the Sistine Chapel, are included.
Recommendation: The Impressionist Art Game and The Renaissance Art Game are painless and fun ways to introduce your family to great works and artists. The materials are beautiful -- colorful, appealing, and well designed. The books contain many fascinating bits that integrate the artists with their times and each other. While the card sets really offer just two games, they have the benefit of requiring no preparation time at all. Busy homeschooling parents will love these sets to complement history studies or strictly for art appreciation.
HomeschoolChristian.com resources related to this review:
HomeschoolChristian.com's Art Page with ideas and links for teaching art!
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