Fun with Fine Art

We took a trip to the National Gallery on Monday-spur of the moment. We joined a tour of American Art, and the girls really enjoyed it!
Not surprisingly, if you know the girls, they talked the tour guide's ear off. She seemed to enjoy their enthusiasm.
















After the tour, we went to see the Impressionists, since they are our favorites, and we are studying Mary Cassatt. I thought she'd be in the tour of Americans, but as she spent most of her life in France, and was part of the French Impressionist movement, her paintings are hung there. Gryphon loves Monet's Waterlilly series, who doesn't?











Here are few of the Mary Cassatt paintings we looked at. Her favorite subjects were women and children, so her paintings have a very sweet, nostalgic feeling to them.

One of the benefits to seeing the original work of art-especially with the Impressionists-is you can see the paint strokes. The girls love to get veeerrryyyy close, and see only paint blobs, then back veeerrrryyyy far, and see the picture emerge.












Here they are being goofy on our way out!


We went home and later did an art unit on Mary Cassatt, with the neighbor kids. Here they are proudly showing off their creations. Mary Cassatt used hats and bonnets as a natural frame for her subjects faces-so we made hats and profiles.