Charlotte Mason believed it was vital that we put our children in the way of beautiful artwork and encourage them to study the paintings. For all beautiful art has its origin in the Divine Life and is inspired by the Creator. The young mind is ready to be shaped by the beauty around him. A young child is truly able to be molded into a person who can see, appreciate, and value beauty if given the opportunity. 

Charlotte Mason tells us, “The minds of children and of their elders alike accommodate themselves to what is put in their way; and if children appreciate the vulgar and sentimental in art, it is because that is the manner of art to which they become habituated.”

On this page, I am creating a resource for you to study art with your children. Along with a bio of the painter, I will include a number of his or her works to linger over with your children. Each time period will include three painters. 

Charlotte Mason suggested, “When children have begun regular lessons (that is, as soon as they are six), this sort of study of pictures should not be left to chance, but they should take one artist after another, term by term, and study quietly some half-dozen reproductions of his work in the course of the term.”

A term in Charlotte Mason’s program was twelve weeks. There were three of them. Therefore, I’ve designed this so that you will have the opportunity to study three artists over the course of a year, and six of his works during that time. This may seem like a lot, but the study of a painting should not take more than ten minutes of your day. In the links below, you will be taken to pages for each time period. The first page will begin with a bio of the artist, and when available a portrait of the artist. Each subsequent page will depict one of their paintings. Along with the title, there will be questions to ask your child about the artwork. 

As Charlotte Mason suggested for young children, it is always a fun approach to ask the child to examine the painting for five minutes or so. Remove the painting from view and ask the child to recall as much as he can remember. This trains the child’s habit and skill of observation and causes the artwork to be indelibly imprinted upon the child’s mind and memory.

I’m providing this as a free resource because there is really no need for you to purchase an art study when all of these paintings are in the public domain and can be viewed on a computer just as well as in print.