CtG Weeks 26, 27, and 28 - nudity in art

Here are a few highlights from our week...

Ok, I know I am waaaay behind. It has been crunch time around here lately. Dance, band, and AWANA ending and new things beginning. It won't be slowing down anytime soon for us either. It's gonna be one busy summer!

Art

Art has been going well. Not too many complaints from my blue-eyed boy. Here are their versions of the sculpture 'Caligula'. They were trying to focus on the shadows the sculpture casts. 

This rendition reminds me of Hitler...the way my son drew the shadow under his nose.

And here is a picture of what they were trying to draw.

Our art studies also focused on nudity in art and how much to reveal. This lesson could not have come at a better time due to some things my kids (and myself) had unsuspectingly come across when we were in someone else's home the week prior to this lesson. I'll save you the back-story and just say it involved a nude statue and nude paintings. We had a loooong talk with our kids after that, but I thought it was just so perfect how God lined the art lesson up with our experience and just really drove home the point we were trying to get across to our kids.  

The kids had to compare and contrast photos, talk about how they felt and what they thought about how much the artists chose to reveal, and so on. The pictures picked out by MFW were tastefully done, yet drove the point across. For example, one picture grouping was Madonna and Child with Book and the other Saint Joseph and the Infant Christ. The kids liked the latter picture better because the cloth was utilized to cover the baby adequately and arm, legs, and body were positioned in such a way as not to reveal too much of the baby. 

Sadly, there are people (Christian people) who all too willingly accept and even justify nudity in paintings and sculptures because it is considered "art" or because they are trying to display "a beautiful body". Well, if I wouldn't look at a re-creation of that from a picture in a nudey magazine, then why would it be acceptable to take that same nude pose from a magazine, make a painting or sculpture of it, and then deem it as art and acceptable in that form? Because it is "tasteful" that way? I think too many people have bought and are buying into the lie of humanism.

Do people just not get the fact that Adam and Eve made fig leaf coverings once their 'eyes were opened'? God himself made coverings for Adam and Eve because of their nakedness. I could go on, but I like how the God and the History of Art book summed it up, "As we grow in the things of God, He will reveal to us the truths regarding nudity. When we begin to realize that nakedness does grieve God, we will refrain from compromising by viewing nudity."

Bible 

We are continuing our studies by learning about the great prophets Elijah and Elisha and the mostly evil kings during the time of the judges.