Art Literature

We listened to Chasing Vermeer in the Fall. We really enjoyed it  and it got the kids very excited about Vermeer paintings. For some reason we didn't get the next books in the series until just recently.  Most likely we got busy reading other things and other school work.  But when I saw the audio books sitting there on the shelf at the library a few weeks ago and couldn't pass them up.

We started with The Wright 3.  This book took us on an adventure while learning a lot about Frank Lloyd Wright and especially the Robie house in Chicago.  We looked at lots of pictures of the house online so the kids could get a feel for what the story described. They have all decided we need to take a trip to Chicago so we can see this house. I am sure there are a lot of great things to see in Chicago so we will have to add it to the list of places to visit some day.
Since we couldn't go to the actual place I did find this video of the lego Robie house that really helped the kids see the layout of the whole building.


After watching this video they decided they really wanted to have this set of Legos but since the price tag says $179.00 I don't think it will be added to our Lego collection.

We quickly moved onto the third book in the series The Calder Game.


This book was about Alexander Calder and a sculpture called the Minotaur. I actually couldn't find a picture of this sculpture when I googled it so perhaps it isn't real or else just isn't photographed. But there were enough other pictures of Calder's other sculptures to give the kids an idea of what his work was like.
The kids were very excited to see this Alexander Calder fish mobile online because it is described in the story.

I personally had never heard of Alexander Calder before listening to this book. I have seen sculpture and mobiles much like the ones I see he made but I hadn't ever actually paid attention to who the artist was that created them.

I really liked these series of books. They helped me look at art in a different way. I hope the kids learned to see things in art they may not have thought before. If nothing else they have become acquainted with artists and styles of art they might not have otherwise. Well worth the time listening to this stories.