Giselle, Autumn Heather and I took a trip to the Getty specifically to see Woman in Blue Reading a Letter, by Johannes Vermeer, on loan from the City of Amsterdam. We planned to go there anyway, but especially wanted to see this painting before it left the Getty.
I came across a Getty blog with a cute movie featuring ideas as to what the first opening line of that letter might say--we watched it and laughed. See it here: The-opening-lines-of-the-letter-to-the-woman-in-blue The blog also featured one of the lines submitted which a professional writer used to finish the rest of the letter--it was inventive and appropriate.
I came across a Getty blog with a cute movie featuring ideas as to what the first opening line of that letter might say--we watched it and laughed. See it here: The-opening-lines-of-the-letter-to-the-woman-in-blue The blog also featured one of the lines submitted which a professional writer used to finish the rest of the letter--it was inventive and appropriate.
The Getty has a great collection of Impressionist art. This is probably the most famous, though not our favorite of the bunch (no pun intended): Irises by Van Gogh
This is one of our favorite paintings at the Getty. It is huge, colorful and dramatic. This lady was a real princess, that's why she could pose in such a scandalous way!
It was a beautiful, though smoggy day in L.A.
The last thing we saw was the wisteria blooming near the eatery. As always, the traffic near the Getty was atrocious, but we still made good time and got home before the heavy traffic blocked our way up the hill. 'Twas a lovely way to spend a lovely day!
LA CENERENTOLA
In March Giselle and I, and others from our school group attended the Los Angeles Opera performance of Rossini's,
La Cenerentola, ossia La bontà in trionfo (Cinderella, or Goodness Triumphant).
Student artwork:
ART AND MUSIC FLASH CARDS
This year Giselle and I learned famous art and music pieces through "flashcards.
Before the start of our art school year, I took photos of 250 art and architecture masterpieces from books and turned them into slides. In my humanities classes at BYU the professors showed slides of art and architecture, so I thought we should do the same in our school.
Learning art in 2013 is much easier. This year we had three powerpoint documents in art history divisions which matched our school year components, for example,
Renaissance and Reformation--
Mona Lisa
Arnolfini Wedding by Jan van Eyck
Baroque and Neoclassical
The Night Watch by Rembrandt
Napoleon Crossing the Alps by Jacque Louis David
Romantic and Impressionist/Modern
Liberty Leading the People by Eugene Delacroix
Water Lillies by Claude Monet
We usually looked through our flashcard powerpoint docs about one to two times a week. We also used the art app I wrote about--Daily Art, which displayed many of the artists and art pieces we learned about this year.
For musical flashcards I used a site which features 100 famous classical pieces. You can play 10 seconds of each piece, which I did randomly, then Giselle would guess the composer and name fo the piece. She also tested me from time to time.
The great part about these sites is that you can actually see the name of the artist and the piece, and every single piece is pretty famous and familiar.
One more site I ABSOLUTELY LOVE is called Classics For Kids. I downloaded the podcasts and receive updates automatically. My mom and I listened to several of these podcasts, about famous composers and their works, while driving across the country. These are fun to listen to and each podcast is only a few minutes long.
Finding usable resources today is so much easier than it was in 1999-2000 when we did our Unfinished Symphony music year. I can find any piece of music almost instantly today, either in iTunes or YouTube. in 1999 when we were writing the music year, it took awhile for us to find the school year theme music, Schubert's Symphony No. 8 (Unfinished). Hal III bought several CD's at Best Buy and Costco until he found it for us.
Today I can find any piece of music almost instantly today, either in iTunes or YouTube. This reminds me of the saying, "The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read." (Mark Twain). So too, the woman who does not listen to great music or gaze at artistic masterpieces has no advantage over the woman who cannot do so.
LATIN CLASS
Ever since we began to study Latin, I've wanted to take my class to a Catholic Latin mass. I finally found one that was held in Fresno near the home of one of our skype students.
We drove up Saturday and came back Monday. On Sunday, after attending our own church, we traveled from Visalia to St. Anthony of Padua Guadalupe Catholic church in Fresno. As it turned out, we attended a high mass with Gregorian chanters singing throughout the service.
We were given booklets with English/Latin side by side, but we were surprised and pleased that we could understand a large portion of the mass without translation. This was perfect timing to attend a mass, as we had just learned so many of the verb conjugations which were used in the mass. I'm so glad we waited until the end to experience this.
The kids visited and went for a few walks in the beautiful nature surrounding Bridey's home. Giselle bothered Jeremy a lot too, which was extra fun for her.
Watching those two reminded me of the George Wythe College ball in 2005. Giselle wanted to dance, so Jeremy danced with her--I've always loved him for that!
If I had known that we would have our last Latin class in Visalia, we would have celebrated even more, but we had a fun relaxing time visiting with friends and doing just a smidge of Latin.
Bridey and Jeremy have a good spirit in their home. It's always great to visit with them. Here they are waving goodbye to us:
We drove up Saturday and came back Monday. On Sunday, after attending our own church, we traveled from Visalia to St. Anthony of Padua Guadalupe Catholic church in Fresno. As it turned out, we attended a high mass with Gregorian chanters singing throughout the service.
We were given booklets with English/Latin side by side, but we were surprised and pleased that we could understand a large portion of the mass without translation. This was perfect timing to attend a mass, as we had just learned so many of the verb conjugations which were used in the mass. I'm so glad we waited until the end to experience this.
I will miss teaching Latin. I will miss learning Latin. I hope this experience will resonate for good and for a long time in the lives of my students. We had a great time together.
Magistra Bradley's Latin Class--September 2010-March 2013
COMPONENT: A SYMPHONY OF STEAM
TOPIC: ROMANTIC FANATICS
OPENING DAY
In March, Giselle and I were in charge of a component/topic opening day for school. Each component has two topics and each topic consists of an artist, a composer and a point in time. The Romantic Fanatics opening day included Caspar David Friedrich, Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and the invention of the steam locomotive.
While planning this day I thought about the many over-the-top descriptions of nature in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein:
So we decided to spend a day in nature. We met at the Mormon Rocks Trail, across the road from Mormon Rocks, and I shared a little bit about Tchaikovsky, we learned sonata form-- ABA, and we listened to some of his nature songs."The immense mountains and precipices that overhung me on every side, the sound of the river raging among the rocks, and the dashing waterfalls around spoke of a power mighty as Omnipotence--and I ceased to fear or to bend before any being less almighty than that which had created and ruled the elements, here displayed in their most terrific guise." Rousseau, from Frankenstein, 78
First we all wrote down our Russian names and put them on our name tags:
(this is Sadie's daughter)
· Piotr – Russian for Peter· The middle name is a patronymic name—it tells what your father’s first name is.
· If you’re a boy you add “ich” or “ovich” to your father’s name to make your patronymic. Tchaikovsky’s father’s name was Ilia, so his patronymic was Ilyich—“son of Ilyich.”
· If you’re a girl you add “ova” or “ovna” to your father’s first name.
I used my dad's name, Gene, and so my name tag read:
Marget Genova. I told the kids they could call me that. Giselle didn't ever write down her Russian name because she was a German Romantic landscape painter, our visitor, Caspar David Friederich. We hiked the trail to where she was:
When we got to the top of the hill, Caspar was painting. He taught us atmospheric perspective and the key words to remember: pale, grey, and fuzzy.
We enjoyed an al fresco art lesson by a famous Romantic painter. Giselle said she didn't really teach them much, but I thought the kids would rather get just a bit of instruction and pull out their paints, than listen to a long lesson anyway, and they did!
You can see Mormon Rocks in the background. (The rocks are in the Cajon Pass. Near the rocks the first wagon road was blazed through the Cajon Pass in 1848 by Mormon Battalion soldiers).
Next we went to the San Bernardino Railroad museum. Romantics often painted trains and railroads to depict themes of modernity and progress, and the heightened emotions of travel.
I'm glad Giselle wanted to be a visitor. To plan this day, Giselle and I walked the trail to decide where she could teach a class. It was a little windy up there without an easel with clamps, but she did a great job, and the kids really like her. It was a fun, productive day and a good start for learning about the Romantic Fanatics.
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