I try to pair music, art, and literature with history. The reasoning is that perhaps this pairing will give them a reference, a framework, if you will, to how the art developed and existed in context. That is my hope anyway.  A mother can dream. In history this session we studied Story of the World Volume 3 which covers the time period from Queen Elizabeth to the 49ers (roughly the 1600’s through mid 1800’s.)  The Art in that time period was amazing, spanning the Baroque to Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Realism and finally Impressionism. I pulled the artists to study for each time period from A Children’s Introduction to Art; our artists this past session included Rembrandt, Vermeer, de Goya, Hokusai, Manet, Homer, Monet, Degas, Cezanne, Renoir, and Cassatt.  Always trying to find games and activities that will give them repeat exposure, I went looking for games.

The game that I’ve used in the past for art during the Renaissance have been “Go Fish for Art” series by Birdcage, which are great. I did buy the Impressionist set, but I kept looking further for something that had more of the artists we were studying.  I came across this lovely game called “Master Gallery.” This game filled some of the gaps in artists that we were studying and the complexity of play is greater.

In the game you play an art dealer trying to guess the market for the art.  You do this by playing four rounds of beautiful cards with the art of 5 artists: Vermeer, Renoir, Degas, Van Gogh, and Monet. The top three artists with the greatest amount of cards played of each round receives points of 3, 2, and 1 correspondingly. Points are accumulative throughout the game.  The exciting part for me was the math that was involved in calculating points-addition and multiplication.  This has been a great exposure to the artists.

Here’s a list of the artists’ work included in the cards:

Van Gogh:  The Starry Night; Café Terrance;  The Church at Auvers-sur-Oise; Self Portrait as an Artists; Road with cypresses; Sunflowers; Vincent’s Chair

Renoir:  Young Girls at the Piano; The Wing; Self Portrait; The Lovers;  Mme. Clementine Stora in Algerian Dress; Little Girl Carrying Flowers

Monet:   Woman with a Parasol turned to the Right; Waterlilies; Self Portrait; Rouen Cathedral in Full Sunlight: Harmony in Blue and Gold; The Artist’s Garden at Vetheuil; The Rue Saint-Denis

Degas:  Dancer; The Star; Self Portrait; At the Stock Exchange; Before the Race; Little Dancer

Vermeer:  Girl with a Pearl Earring; The Astronomer; The Artist’s Studio; The Lacemaker; The Milkmaid; The Guitar Player